It is imprudent to go out; the night was almost peaceable, the morning
is hideous. The roar of musketry is intense and without interruption. I
suppose there must be fighting going on in the Rue du Faubourg
Montmartre. I start back, the noise is so fearful. In the Cour Trévise
not a person to be seen, the houses are closely shut and barred. On a
second floor I hear a great moving of furniture, and hear quite
distinctly the sound of sobbing, of female sobbing. I hear that the
second floor of the house is inhabited by a member of the Commune and
his family. I am about to go up and see if I can be of any help to the
women in case of danger, when I see a man precipitately enter the
Court. He wears a uniform of lieutenant; I recognise him, it is the
porter. He stops, looks around him, and seeing that he is alone, takes
his rifle in both hands and throws it with all his strength over the
high wall which is on the left hand of the Court. That done, he rushes
into the house. There I distinctly hear him say to his wife, “The
barricade is taken, give me a _blouse_, they are at Montmartre. We are
done for!” I think, the porter must have made a mistake, and that the
battery is not taken yet, for I hear the whistling of a shell that,
seems to come from Montmartre. The deafening clamour on all sides
redoubles, all the separate noises seem to confound themselves in one
ceaseless roar, like the working of a million of hammers on a million
of anvils. I can scarcely bear it; my hands clutch the door-posts
convulsively. I lean out as far as I can, but see nothing but a company
of soldiers preceded by two gendarmes, who are entering the Court. They
stop before the door of the house. Several of them go in, and then I
hear the sound of a door suddenly opened and shut, and heavy steps on
the wooden floor. I feel myself trembling; this man they have come to
arrest—are they going to shoot him here, in his own apartment, before
his wife? Thank God, no! The two gendarmes reappear in the street
holding the prisoner between them; his hands are bound; the soldiers
surround them, and they are going to march away, when the man, lifting
up his arms, cries fiercely, “I have but one regret, that I did not
blow up the whole of the quarter.” At this instant the window above is
opened, and a woman with grey hair leans out, crying, “Die in peace, I
will avenge you!” At these words the soldiers arrest their steps, and
the two gendarmes re-enter the house. They are going to take the wife
prisoner after having taken the husband. I fall back into a chair
horrified; I shut my eyes not to see, and I press my hands on my ears,
not to hear the dreadful sound of the musketry, but the horrible shrill
noise is triumphant, and I hear it all the same.