"I had returned to my house on the Saturday evening. Sunday morning, on crossing the Boulevard du Prince Eugène, I was taken in a razzia. We were conducted to La Roquette. A chief of battalion was standing at the entrance. He surveyed us; then, with a nod of the head, said, 'To the right,' or 'To the left.' I was sent to the left. 'Your affair is settled,' the soldiers said to us; 'you are going to be shot, canailles!' We were ordered to throw away our matches if we had any about us, and then the signal was given to march on.
"I was the last of the file, and by the side of the sergeant who conducted us. He looked at me. 'Who are you?' he asked me. 'A professor. I was taken this morning as I came out of my house.' No doubt my accent, the elegance of my clothes, struck him, for he added, 'Have you any papers?' 'Yes.' 'Come!' and he took me back before the chief of battalion. 'Commander,' said he, 'there is a mistake. This young man has his papers.' 'All right,' answered the officer, without looking at me, 'to the right.'
"The sergeant led me off. As we went along, he explained to me that the prisoners taken to the left were shot. We had already got to a door on the right, when a soldier ran after us: 'Sergeant, the commandant says you are to take back this man to the left.'
"Fatigue, despair at the defeat, the enervation caused by so much anguish, deprived me of all strength to dispute my life. 'Well, shoot me,' said I to the sergeant, 'for you it will be but a crime the more! only return these papers to my family,' and I turned to the left.
"I already perceived a long file of men drawn up against a wall, others lying on the ground. Opposite them three priests read in their breviaries the prayers of the dying. A few steps more and I was dead, when suddenly I was seized hold of by the arm. It was my sergeant. He took me back by force to the officer. 'Commandant,' said he, 'we cannot shoot this man. He has his papers!' 'Let me see,' said the officer. I handed over my pocket-book, which contained a card as employé at the Ministry of Commerce during the first siege. 'To the right,' said the commandant.
"There were soon more than 3,000 prisoners on the right. All Sunday and part of the night detonations resounded by the side of us. On Monday morning a platoon came in. 'Fifty men,' said the sergeant. We thought we were going to be shot by parties, and no one stirred. The soldiers took the first fifty they came across. I was of the number. We were taken to the famous left side.
"On a space which seemed to us endless we saw heaps of corpses. 'Pick up all this rubbish,' said the sergeants to us, 'and put them into these carts.' We raised up these corpses covered with blood and mud. The soldiers made frightful jokes; 'See what grimaces they cut,' and with their heels crushed some face. It seemed to me that some were still living. We told the soldiers so, but they answered, 'Come, come! get on!' Certainly some died under the earth. We put 1,907 corpses into these carts."
The Liberté of the 4th June said:—
"The governor of La Roquette during the Commune, and his acolytes, were shot on the very scene of their exploits.
"For the other National Guards arrested in this neighbourhood, and whose number exceeded 4,000, a provisional court-martial was installed in the Roquette itself. A commissary of police and police agents of safety were charged with the first examination. Those appointed to be shot were sent into the interior; they were killed from behind while they were walking along, and their bodies were thrown on to the nearest heap. All these monsters had the faces of bandits; the exceptions were to be regretted."