ange, and
several were swallowed up in the flames while endeavouring to present
their receipts.

Nevertheless, any illusion concerning the state of affairs was
impossible. The enemy was master of the town. Instead of silence the
noise of explosions was now continuous and produced an insurmountable
feeling of horror. The lighting apparatus having been destroyed, the
city was plunged in darkness all through the night, and appalling crimes
were committed. The populous districts alone, having suffered the least,
still preserved measures of protection. The were paraded by patrols of
volunteers who shot the robbers, and at every street corner one stumbled
over a body lying in a pool of blood, the hands bound behind the back, a
handkerchief over the face, and a placard pinned upon the breast.

It became impossible to clear away the ruins or to bury the dead. Soon
the stench from the corpses became intolerable. Epidemics raged and
caused innumerable deaths, while they also rendered the survivors feeble
and listless. Famine carried off almost all who were left. A hundred
and one days after the first outrage, whilst six army corps with field
artillery and siege artillery were marching, at night, into the poorest
quarter of the city, Caroline and Clair, holding each other's hands,
were watching from the roof a lofty house, the only one still left
standing, but now surrounded by smoke and flame, joyous songs ascended
from the street, where the crowd was dancing in delirium.

"To-morrow it will be ended," said the man, "and it will be better."

The young woman, her hair loosened and her face shining with the
reflection of the flames, gazed with a pious joy at the circle of fire
that was growing closer around them.

"It will be better," said she also.

And throwing herself into the destroyer's arms she pressed a passionate
kiss upon his lips.

S. 4

The other towns of the federation also suffered from disturbances and
outbreaks, and then order was restored. Reforms were introduced into
institutions and great changes took place in habits and customs, but the
country never recovered the loss of its capital, and never regained its
former prosperity. Commerce and industry dwindled away, and civilization
abandoned those countries which for so long it bad preferred to all
others. They became insalubrious and sterile; the territory that had
supported so many millions of men became nothing more than a desert. On
the hill of Fort St