* * * *

"'"Go on," said the officers to the unoffending citizens who demanded
their protection. At these words they went their way quickly and with
confidence; but it was merely a watchword which meant _death_; for
they had gone only a few steps before they fell.'

"'At the moment the firing began on the boulevards,' says another
witness, 'a bookseller near the carpet warehouse was hastily closing
his shop, when a number of fugitives who were striving to obtain
admittance were suspected by the troops of the line, or the gendarmerie
mobile, I do not know which, of having fired upon them. The soldiers
broke into the bookseller's house. The bookseller endeavoured to
explain matters; he was taken out, alone, before his own door, and his
wife and daughters had only time to throw themselves between him and
the soldiers when he fell dead. His wife had her thigh traversed by a
ball, while his daughter was saved by the steel of her stays. I have
been informed that his wife has since gone mad.'

"Another witness says:--

"'The soldiers entered the two booksellers' shops between _Le
Prophete_ and M. Sallandrouze's. The murders committed there have
been proved. The two booksellers were massacred on the pavement. The
other prisoners were put to death in the shops.'

"Let us conclude with three extracts which it is impossible to
transcribe without a shudder:--

"'For the first quarter of an hour of this scene of horror,' says a
witness, 'the firing, which for a moment became less sharp, caused some
persons who were only wounded to suppose that they might get up. Of
those who were lying before _Le Prophete_ two rose. One of them fled by
Rue du Sentier, from which he was only a few yards away. He reached it
amid a shower of balls which carried away his cap. The other could only
succeed in raising himself on his knees, in which position, with his
hands clasped, he besought the soldiers to spare his life; but he fell
at once, shot dead. The next day one could see in the side of the
veranda of _Le Prophete_ a spot only a few feet in extent, which more
than a hundred balls had struck.'

"'At the end of Rue Montmartre as far as the fountain, a distance of
about sixty paces, there were sixty bodies of men and women, mothers,
children, and young girls. All these unfortunate creatures had fallen
victims of the first volley fired by the troops and the gendarmerie,
who were stationed on the opposite