one
of the Federals blows out Monsieur Pasquier's brains with his revolver,
and ten minutes later Mont Valerien opens a formidable fire, which
continues as fiercely four hours afterwards.

Meanwhile the drams beat to arms, on all sides. A considerable number of
battalions defile along the Boulevard Montmartre; more than twenty
thousand men, some say, who pretend to know. On they march, singing and
shouting "_Vive la Commune! Vive la Republique!_" They are answered by a
few shouts. These are not the Montmartre and Belleville guards alone;
peaceful faces of citizens and merchants may be seen under the military
_kepis_, and many hands are white as no workman's are. They march in
good order,--they are calm and resolved; one feels that these men are
ready to die for a cause that they believe to be just. I raise my hat
as they pass; one must do honour to those who, even if they be guilty,
push their devotion so far as to expose themselves to death for their
convictions.

But what are these convictions? What is the Commune? The men who sit at
the Hotel de Ville have published no programme, yet they kill and are
killed for the sake of the Commune. Oh, words! words! What power they
have over you, heroic and most simple people!

In the evening out came a proclamation. There was so great a crowd
wherever it was posted up that I had not the chance of copying it; but
it ran somewhat in these terms:--

"CITIZENS,--This morning the Royalists have ATTACKED.

"Impatient, before our moderation they have ATTACKED.

"Unable to bring French bayonets against us, they have opposed us
with the Imperial Guard and Pontifical Zouaves.

"They have bombarded the inoffensive village of Neuilly.

"Charette's _chouans_, Cathelineau's _Vendeens_, Trochu's _Bretons_,
Valentin's _gendarmes_, have rushed upon us.

"There are dead and wounded.

"Against this attack, renewed from the Prussians, Paris should rise
to a man.

"Thanks to the support of the National Guard, the victory will be
ours!"

Victory! What victory? Oh, the bitter pain! Paris shedding the blood of
France, France shedding the blood of Paris! From whatever side the
triumph comes, will it not be accursed?

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 33: On the 1st of April several shots were fired under the
walls of Fort Issy, but it was not until the next day, the 2nd of April,
at nine o'clock in the morning, that the action commenced in earnest a