Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1871-07-01
incidents of the Capture of Paris.

A dense SMOKE overhung the whole Rue de Ia
PAX quarter, and made ones way uncertain,
and 70 one ventured into certain streets he was
Immediately impressed into the water bucket
chain, and kept laboring to help eNtinguish the
fires all day. Every one, young and old, who
was commanded TO pass down to the fires had to
obey. The penalty was arrest and possible
shooting; and ones progress was a constant
succession of paIIics. Strangers were treated
like Parisians, and hustled when they grumbled.
The national guards OF order were fretting and
tuning about, as If anxious for pretext 10 kill
something; and il was unsafe to reason with
them. One man assured me that five thousand
insurgents had been shot since the troops entered.
Il mildly expressed doubts He quarreled at
once, and endeavored 10 draw a crowd around
me, but left him post haste. To even hint that
a communist was human being was almost the
signal for ones execution. Toward evening
the shells fell very rapidly in the Place de
IOpera, and a woman, who was coming to
down by shell from the Chaumont battery.
a h6fs4 was also wounded near the Opera
barricade, and added his screams to the ter
ror. The front of the building in which the
The Mosques were riddled with bullets. In the
Rues Scribe and Auber, shells fell every few
moments. The troops suffered considerably.
The incendiary panic became wilder every mo-
ment, and as the lurid flames from the ministry
OF hnance htup the Opera square, one could see
men and women brought down tied and bleeding
70 the square, where they were instantly shot.
"A number of Americans and French people have
recounted 10 me the following incident, which
defy any one to read without a certain emotion.
On Thursday very beautiful young girl, taken
In the act of scattering infiammable matches
against the houses, was marched down the Rue
de la Paix TO the Place VendOme to be shot. She
seemed quite beside herself, and answered quiet
ly, when asked what she was doing and what she
mad in her apron, 'Only some kindlings to light
my fire withl' Her beauty, and her elastic and
courageous step, as she marched to execution,
cid not enlist the women in her favor; but as she
turned and faced the crowd with flashing eye
and as her long black hair swayed in the breeze,
many strong man shed tears. The implacable
war of the poor against the rich, carried now to
the extremity of despair, made this young girl
march as proudly to the shambles as though her
cause had won and Paris were free. A few min
utes after she had entered the Place, the re-
port of some muskets was heard. The military
school on the Champ de Mars was made the
fayorite place for executions. Prisoners taken
there rarely came out. On Wednesday and
THURSDAY the professions were almost constant,
and as fast as the men and women entered the
doomed precinct the tramp of firing platoon
and discharge of a number OF muskets could be
heard. The cOrpses were heaped up so that
newcomers had to climb over them in order to
stand at the fatal wall. One man cut a pirouette
as he marched over his dead comrades, and gave
the word " Fire!" himself. The bodies were
dragged afterward from the Champ de Mars to
tTenches.-Auth0r Of Z" NJ Paris"