that woman; fire at the women!'

"This was one of the watchwords; on Boulevard Montmartre, where the
bayonet was greatly in requisition, a young staff-captain cried: 'Prick
the women!'

"One woman, with a loaf under her arm, thought she might cross Rue
Saint-Fiacre. A tirailleur shot her down.

"On Rue Jean-Jacques-Rousseau they did not go so far. A woman cried,
'Vive la Republique!' she was merely whipped by the soldiers. But let
us return to the boulevard.

"One of the passers-by, a bailiff, was struck by a ball aimed at his
head; he fell on his hands and knees, imploring mercy! He received
thirteen more balls in his body. He survived: by a miraculous chance,
not one of his wounds was mortal. The ball which struck his head tore
the skin, and made the circuit of his skull without fracturing it.

"An old man of eighty, being found concealed somewhere or other, was
brought before the steps of _Le Prophete_, and shot: he fell. 'He will
have no bump on his head,' said a soldier; the old man had fallen upon
a heap of dead bodies. Two young men from Issy, who had been married
only a month, to two sisters, were crossing the boulevard on their way
from business. They saw the muskets levelled at them, and threw
themselves on their knees, crying, 'We married the two sisters!' They
were killed. A dealer in cocoa, named Robert, living on Faubourg
Poissonniere, No. 97, fled, with his can on his back, down Rue
Montmartre; he was killed.[1] A boy of thirteen, a saddler's apprentice,
was passing along the boulevard opposite the Cafe Vachette. The soldiers
took aim at him. He uttered the most heart-rending cries, and, holding
up a bridle that he had in his hand, waved it in the air, exclaiming,
'I am sent on an errand!' He was killed. Three balls perforated his
breast. All along the boulevards were heard the shrieks and heavy falls
of the wounded, whom the soldiers pierced with their bayonets, and then
left, without taking the trouble to despatch them.

[1] "We may name the witness who saw this. He is one of the
proscribed; it is M. Versigny, a representative of the people.
He says:--

"'I can still see, opposite Rue du Croissant, an unfortunate
itinerant vender of cocoa, with his tin can on his back, stagger,
then gradually sink in a heap, and fall dead before a shop. Armed
only with his bell, he had received all by himself the honour of
being fired at by a whole platoon.'