A FURY OF THE COMMUNE

Evening Post, Volume XLVII, Issue 82, 7 April 1894, Page 2 (Supplement)

A FURY OF THE COMMUNE

About ten o'clock a young linesman staggered into the courtyard, bareheaded, ghastly pale, his tunic half stripped off. His neck was cut deeply open at the bottom on the right Bide for a length of nearly six inches, and the severed flesh hung down on to the shoulder in a thick scarlet fold ; he dripped with blood, and, literally, spattered it about him as he reeled in. He still held his rifle with his left hand, and with his right he dragged after him a young woman with nothing on her but a torn chemise and uniform trousers (which indicated that she had been a cantiniere of the Commune). With a last effort, the soldier flung the woman towards us, stammering out hoarsely, "She has killed my captain ; she has killed two of my comrades ; she has cut my throat ; and yet I bring her to you alive !" And then the poor young fellow dropped heavily, his rifle ringing on the stones as it fell with him. " Tie that woman's hands behind her," ordered the commanding officer, as the soldier was put upon a litter for conveyance to the ambulance. Silent and breathless stood the woman ; ebe seemed to expect immediate death. There was discussion amongst the officers as to whether it was not their duty to have her shot at once. But, though the case was clear they spared her, taking it for granted that, when tried, she would be condemned. . Her arms bound back, she was sent into the cellar. She was, however, the only one let off ; from that moment every prisoner, man or woman, brought in red-handed, was taken across to the Park and executed straight away. At four in the afternoon the first column of prisoners was formed up outside to march down to Versailles Under the pressure a r many other violent sights, I had forgotten the murderess of the morning, and when, in the ascending stream of captives, she emerged from the dark staircase into the daylight, her appearance was so frightful that, for some seconds, I did not recognise her. She dripped with sweat, for the heat below had been territic ; the blood on her chemise and skin had dried into black cakes that stuck to her ; her hair, dishevelled, hung in glued, glazed spikes over her eyes ; she had evidently been sobbing, and, as she could not move her hands, had been unable to wipe her face, which was scored by long dirty stripes formed by tears and perspiration, and looking liko fresh scars of burns. We all stared at her with horror. " Wash down that woman," cried one of the officers. A stable-bucket full of water and a horse-sponge were brought, and a corporal sluiced her, with a bitter grin. She did not flinch one inch as the water was dashed in her face ; exhausted as she must have been by fatigue, emotion, want of food, and the sickening atmosphere in which she had just passed six hours, she stood like a cliff ; she shut her eyes aud compressed her lips, that was all. Dripping, half-naked, horrible, she tottered out into the street and took her place in the column to walk twelve miles. — From Eec'ollections of the Commune of Paris, in Blackwood's Magazine.