figure of the Buttes Montmartre bristling with cannon; but the number of
guards had become so diminished, and they seemed so tired of the
business, that it appeared as if they were about to quit for good. The
following chapter will inform you what were the waking thoughts of the
Parisians on the morning of the eighteenth of March.

[Illustration]

[Illustration: PURIFICATION OF THE CHAMPS ÉLYSÉES AFTER
THE DEPARTURE OF THE PRUSSIANS MAR 1871]

[Illustration: BUILDING A BARRICADE. MARCH 18. 1871.]

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: Memoir, see Appendix I.]

[Footnote 2: The police had seized, some time before, in Paris, ten
thousand Orsini bombs, and hundreds of others of a new construction,
charged with fulminating mercury.]

[Footnote 3: The eight gigantic female figures, representing the
principal towns of France: Strasbourg, Lille, Metz, &c., &c.]

[Footnote 4: "Joseph Prudhomme" is the typical representative of the
Parisian middle-class (_Bourgeois_); the honest simple father of family,
peaceful but patriotic, proud of his country and ready to die for it.]