"Yes; I am losing blood—a good deal of blood."
"They are coming up the stairs!"
"Into the alcove—let us go into the alcove, on the dresses."
"Here they are!"
"Give me the revolver."
The door gave way violently under the hammering of the butts of the guns. A shower of bullets fell on us and around us. The General, with a single movement, fell heavily at full length on the bed of silk, muslin, and laces that we made for him. Three or four men with red trousers threw themselves on Mme. General, who fought, bit, and screamed, "Assassins! assassins!"
A soldier tore away the bell-cord, firmly tied her hands, and carried her away like a bundle. She continued to repeat, in a strangled voice, "Assassins! assassins!" The soldiers approached the alcove and looked at the General. "As to him," they said, "he's done for; he doesn't need anything more. Let's be off."
They left us, and we remained there for two days, crushed beneath that corpse and covered with blood. Finally, at the end of those two days, a man arrived who was called a Commissioner, and who wore a tricolored scarf around his waist. "This corpse has been forgotten," he said. "Take it away."
They tried to lift the body, but with fingers stiffened by death the General held my big cherry satin butterfly. They had nearly to break his fingers to get it out.
Meantime the Commissioner examined and searched curiously among that brilliant heap of rags on which the General had died. My waist appeared to catch his eye. "Here is a mark," he said to one of his men—"a mark inside the waist, with the name and number of the maker. We can learn where these dresses came from. Wrap this waist in a newspaper and I'll take it."