The column continued its march. Having reached the Pont d'Iéna, they turned to the left, and entered into the Champ de Mars.
There they shot them all.
These 336 corpses were amongst those which were carried to Montmartre Cemetery, and which were buried there with their heads exposed.
In this manner their families were enabled to recognize them. The Government learned who they were after killing them.
Amongst these 336 victims were a large number of the combatants of the Rue Pagevin and the Rue Rambuteau, of the Rue Neuve Saint Eustache and the Porte Saint Denis. There were also 100 passers-by, whom they had arrested because they happened to be there, and without any particular reason.
Besides, we will at once mention that the wholesale executions from the 3d inst. were renewed nearly every night. Sometimes at the Champ de Mars, sometimes at the Prefecture of Police, sometimes at both places at once.
When the prisons were full, M. de Maupas said "Shoot!" The fusillades at the Prefecture took place sometimes in the courtyard, sometimes in the Rue de Jérusalem. The unfortunate people whom they shot were placed against the wall which bears the theatrical notices. They had chosen this spot because it is close by the sewer-grating of the gutter, so that the blood would run down at once, and would leave fewer traces. On Friday, the 5th, they shot near this gutter of the Rue de Jérusalem 150 prisoners. Some one[30] said to me, "On the next day I passed by there, they showed the spot; I dug between the paving-stones with the toe of my boot, and I stirred up the mud. I found blood."
This expression forms the whole history of the coup d'état, and will form the whole history of Louis Bonaparte. Stir up this mud, you will find blood.
Let this then be known to History:—
The massacre of the boulevard had this infamous continuation, the secret executions. The coup d'état after having been ferocious became mysterious. It passed from impudent murder in broad day to hidden murder at night.