Wednesday, 12th April.—Another day passed as yesterday was, as
to-morrow will be. The Versaillais attack the forts of Vanves and Issy
and are repulsed. There is fighting at Neuilly, at Bagneux, at
Asnières. In the town requisitions and arrests are being made. A
detachment of National Guards arrives before the Northern
railway-station. They inquire for the director, but director there is
none. Embarrassing situation this. The National Guards cannot come all
this way for nothing. Determined on arresting some one, they carry off
M. Félix Mathias, head of the works, and M. Coutin, chief inspector. An
hour later other National Guards imprison M. Lucien Dubois, general
inspector of markets, in the depôt of the ex-Prefecture of Police. Here
and there a few journalists are arrested without cause, to serve as
examples; some priests are despatched to Mazas, among others M.
Lartigues, _curé_ of _Saint Leu_. Yesterday the following was placarded
on the shut doors of the church at Montmartre:
“Since priests are bandits and churches retreats where they have
morally assassinated the masses, causing _France to cower beneath the
clutches of the infamous Bonapartes, Favres, and Trochus_, the
delegates of the stone masons at the ex-Prefecture of Police give
orders that the church of Saint-Pierre (not Cinq-Pierres this time)
shall be closed, and decrees the imprisonment of its priests and its
_Frères Ignorantins_. Signed by Le Mousau.”
To-day it is the turn of the church of Notre Dame de Lorette. A
considerable number of worshippers had assembled in the holy place. The
National Guards arrive, headed by men in plain clothes. Under the
Empire such men were called spies. The women found praying are turned
out, those who do not obey promptly enough, with blows. This done, the
guards retire. What they had come there for is not known. But what we
are certain of is, that they will begin again to-morrow in this same
church, or in another. The days resemble each other as the children of
an accursed family. What frightful catastrophe will break this shameful
monotony?