Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1893-12-14
Chapter XI.
Kathleen's Avocation.


pitiless searching light upon scenes
Of death and horror, shines no more
Stormy winds beat and buster agains
that feeble old house in the Rue Gil
lie Occur, with 4 sound and fury as o.
thunder; the cannOnade of heaven
takes up the cannOnade of earth, an(
echoes it with twenty-fold power. TEN
lpeStuous rain lashes the windows, like
the spray from a seething ocean The
icannon of Montmartre thunders against
the heights of Belleville and Menil
mOntant. The insurgents reply with
savage fury, blind, reckless, delugins
Paris with shells.
And while the pitileSs struggle still
goes on upon the heights Of BellevilIe
the day Of reprisals has already begun
for the insurgents. From MaZaS they
bring a hundred and forty eight prison
ers, hastily huddled into the prison
yesterday. In the stormy Sunday morn
ing, WhitSuntide morning, they are
marched to the cemetery of Pere La
chaise among the trees and the flow
ers and the marble monuments of the
|
that common grave where the muir
dered Archbishop and his companions
lie in their bloody shrouds, the Federal
prisoners are divided into patches of
ten, and shot to death. They die brave
| ly, joining hands and crying, Long
live the COmmune!' with their last
breath.
Tn Of
about the same hour, two hundred and
tWenty-seyen insurgents meet the same
doom; not quite so boldly, for some
of these, said an eyewitness, were
snivellers, and begged for mercy.
The final hour has come; those shells
are verify the death-rattle Of the Com
! mune. Thirty thousand men are said
to be concentrated upon this point
| of Paris, where they have built up
giant barricadeS, almost impenetrable
| fOrtreSSeS, communicating with each
other by underground passages, a Won
! der of rough and ready masonry and
skill. They are held in this supreme
hour by men of desperate courage,
men who have sworn not to surrender.
Two o'clock on that stormy Sabbath;
and SO far there has been neither rest
nor respite. Cannon, mitrailleuse,
chassepot, laundering, rafting, roar
! ing, kissing; but now as the afternoon
wears on there come intervals of ST
lence. The cannonade pauSes to draw
breath. The sounds of battle seem
more remote-they die away in the
distance. Then silence.
Silence! Are they all dead?
This is Sunday, the day when the
labOrer rests from his toll; but today
there has been only one laborer, and
his name is Death
! Evening, and for the first time for
many weeks and many days no more
cannon. 0 happy silence of peace! Or
should we not rather say silence of
death?
A column of six thousand prisoners
who have surrendered at Belleville
| slowly defle along the boulevard; and
this is verify the end. Yes, the cup of
desolation has been drained to the
| dregS There have been the sword to
! Stay, and the dogs to tear, and the
beasts of the earth to devour and de
stroy, as in the day of the Prophet;
only the dogs have been human dogs,
and the beasts have been human
beasts; and the whirlwind of the Lord
has gone forth with fury, a continuing
whirlwind, and it has fallen with pain
upon the head of the wicked; and on
the head of the good and just, and in
nocent and gentle also.
The sacred month of May, month
dedicated to the holy mother of God
was oyer-month of May never to be
forgotten by the French people, May
which has left it's indelible mark upon
the city of PariS-and now all the
gates of the city were opened, and
the world came to see the work OF
destruction. English, Americans, for
eigners of all kinds went about look
ing at the ruins, as at Pompeii or Her
culaneum, criticising, examining, some
what disappointed that the havoc was
not more universal.
On the 18th of June came the funera
procession Of Monsignor Darboy, the
third Archbishop of Paris murdered
within a quarter Of a century. Under
a gray and sunless sky the car will
its long train of mourners, soldiers
people, solemnly, silently defled alons
the quays, past the still smoulderin:
: ruins of palaces and mansions. No rol
of drums, no funeral music broke tina
: awful silence: only the rhythmica
) tread of the soldiers, the hollow rumble
of gun-carriages. In the dumbness of ;
= broken hearted city, city rocking witt
: blood newly shed, the martyr was
carried to his tomb in the great ca
thedral-last stage of a journey tina
} had known so many dismal haltine
places-from prison to prison, and the
} to the common grave at Pere Lachalse
: from there to the bed of state in tn
e archiepiscopal palace, and now to tn
e final reSting-plaee among the histori
t dead
E In the Rue Git lie Occur life had TX
d sumed it's wonted way, save for on
empty place. Rose was again astil
l. the careful manager, the atteniv
l. wife, nursing her baby, busy with be
v domestic work. cleaning, cooking, keel
}. ing the little apartment as neat an
n bright as a palace. There We're flow
O ers on the window-sill again, a bunc
of flowers on the table at which Phil
s wrote or read, bouquet of lilies {
the valley, pure, spotless, telling no Ia
e of ruined city, Inundated an
h IMPOVERISHED nation. Within, by tt