in their hands to defend the French
capital against the Prussians, proclaimed the Commune, and, probably
out of a habit just lately got into by the French army, we retreated to
Versailles, leaving Paris at the mercy of the Revolutionists.

This is not the place to account for this revolution.

An explanation of it, which always struck me as somewhat forcible, is
the one given by a Communist prisoner to a captain, a friend of mine,
who was at the time acting as _juge d'instruction_ to one of the
Versailles courts-martial.

"Why did you join the Commune?" he asked a young and
intelligent-looking fellow who had been taken prisoner behind some
barricade.

"Well, captain, I can hardly tell you. We were very excited in Paris;
in fact, off our heads with rage at having been unable to save Paris.
We had a considerable number of cannon and ammunition, which we were
not allowed to use against the Prussians. We felt like a sportsman who,
after a whole day's wandering through the country, has not had an
opportunity of discharging his gun at any game, and who, out of spite,
shoots his dog, just to be able to say on returning home that he had
killed something."

* * * * *

On the 14th of April, 1871, my regiment received the order to attack
the Neuilly bridge, a formidable position held by the Communists.

What the Prussians had not done some compatriot of mine succeeded in
doing. I fell severely wounded.

After my spending five months in the Versailles military hospital, and
three more at home in convalescence, the army surgeons declared that I
should no longer be able to use my right arm for military purposes, and
I was granted a lieutenant's pension, which would have been just
sufficient to keep me in segars if I had been a smoker.

But of this I do not complain. Poor France! she had enough to pay!

* * * * *

At the end of the year of grace, 1871, my position was very much like
that of my beloved country: all seemed lost, _fors l'honneur_.

Through my friends, however, I was soon offered a choice between two
"social positions."

The first was a colonel's commission in the Egyptian army (it seemed
that the state of my right arm was no objection).

I was to draw a very good salary. My friends in Cairo, however, warned
me that salaries were not always paid very regularly, but sometimes
allowed to run on till cash came into the Treasury