ht down to the river side, and then with their
backs to the wall have met their doom. On the sloping roads leading down
from the _quai_ to the river may also be seen inequalities where the
road has been recently disturbed and where the freshly-turned earth
indicates burial-places. Not far from these bodies were lying several
dead horses, from which the people were cutting steaks. The inside of
the Hotel de Ville presents a curious scene, the solid masses of stone
and lime of which the rubbish is composed having fallen in in the form
of a crater, which fills up the whole central place. Under this mound
are said to be buried from 200 to 300 Insurgents who were unable to
escape at the last moment, and thus fell the victims of the
conflagration they had themselves originated. The mutilation of the
ornamental work of this magnificent specimen of architecture is simply
hideous; there is scarcely a square inch of the _facade_ untouched by
shot or shell. Anxious, if possible, to judge of the progress of the
attack which was being made on the Insurgent position at Pere-Lachaise,
I reached the Place Chateau d'Eau, which had been taken the day before
from the Insurgents. I found it, however, impossible to go beyond the
angle of the Wall near the Ambigu. Here a small crowd was collected
which was dispersed by a shot just as I approached, and the place itself
was a solitary desert, for it was swept from the heights of Belleville
down the Faubourg du Temple. Passing along the Boulevard Magenta, we
obtained from the point where the Rue du Faubourg St. Denis traverses
the Rue Lafayette, a view of an Insurgent barricade, on which a red flag
was still flying, and which was turned by the troops while we were
there. We were looking down the long, straight line of street totally
deserted, and in the far distance watching the barricade, beyond which
rose the occasional puffs of smoke from a musketry fire, when we
suddenly saw the red trousers scampering across in twos and threes, and
then in larger numbers, and knew that the barricade had been taken, and
that it was safe to come out of our cover and walk on the opposite side
of the street. All this time the whistling and bursting of the shell
overhead was as incessant and loud as I have ever heard on the field of
battle. We were directly in the line of fire between Montmartre and Pere
la Chaise, although completely protected from it, as everything passed
overhead. But the terrific rushing thro