Down the beautiful green slopes into the Bois de Boulogne, the snaky lines of sap and trench bring the octopus daily nearer to the doomed modern Babylon. Flash of rifle gun and crack of musketry re-echo in the great park. It is now shorn of its lovely trees, where man and maid so lately held the trysts of love. A bloody dew rains on devoted Paris.
A fateful Sunday is that twenty-first of May when the red-mouthed cannon roar from dawn till dark. At eventide, the grim regulars bayonet the last defenders of the redoubts at the Point du Jour gates. The city is open to McMahon.
The lodgment once made, a two nights' bombardment adds to the horrors of this living hell.
On the twenty-third, Montmartre's bloody shambles show how merciless are the stormers. Dombrowski lies dead beside his useless guns. All hope is lost. Murder and pillage reign in Paris.
Behind their doors, barricaded with the heavier furniture, the family of Aristide Dauvray invoke the mercy of God. They are led by PŠre Fran‡ois, who thinks the awful Day of Judgment may be near. Humanity has passed its limits. Fiends and furies are the men and women, who, crazed with drink, swarm the blood-stained streets.
In their lines, far outside, the stolid Prussians joke over their beer, as they learn of the wholesale murder finishing red Bellona's banquet. "The French are all crazy." They laugh.
The twenty-fourth of May arrives. Paris is aflame. Battle unceasing, storm of shell, rattle of rifles, and cannon balls skipping down the Champs Elysees mark this fatal day. A deep tide of human blood flows from the Madeleine steps to the Seine. The river is now filled with bodies. Columns of troops, with heavy tramp and ringing platoon volleys, disperse the rallying squads of rebels, or storm barricade after barricade. Squadrons of cavalry whirl along, and cut down both innocent and guilty.
After three awful days more, the six thousand bodies lying among the tombs of PŠre la Chaise tell that the last stronghold of the Commune has been stormed. Belleville and Buttes de Chaumont are piled with hundreds of corpses. The grim sergeants' squads are hunting from house to house, bayoneting skulking fugitives, or promptly shooting any persons found armed.
The noise of battle slowly sinks away. Flames and smoke soar to the skies: the burnt offering now; the blood offering is nearly over.
Thirty superb palaces of the municipality are in flames. Under Notre Dame's sacred roof, blackened brands and flooded petroleum tell of the human fiends' visit.