I.


Listen! What does that mean? Is it a transient squall or the first gust
of a tempest? Is it due to nature or to man's agency; is it an émeute or
the advent of a revolution that is to overturn everything?

Such were my reflections when awakened, on the 18th of March, 1871, at
about four in the morning, by a noise due to the tramp of many feet.
From my window, in the gloomy white fog, I could see detachments of
soldiers walking under the walls, proceeding slowly, wrapped in their
grey capotes; a soft drizzling rain falling at the time. Half awake, I
descended to the street in time to interrogate two soldiers passing in
the rear.

"Where are you going?" asked I.--"We do not know," says one; "Report
says we are going to Montmartre," adds the other.[5] They were really
going to Montmartre. At five o'clock in the morning the 88th Regiment of
the line occupied the top of the hill and the little streets leading to
it, a place doubtless familiar to some of them, who on Sundays and fête
days had clambered up the hill-sides in company with apple-faced rustics
from the outskirts, and middle-class people of the quarter; taking part
in the crowd on the Place Saint-Pierre, with its games and amusements,
and "assisting," as they would say, at shooting in a barrel, admiring
the ability of some, whilst reviling the stupidity of others; when they
had a few sous in their pockets they would try their own skill at
throwing big balls into the mouths of fantastic monsters, painted upon a
square board, while their country friends nibbled at spice-nuts, and
thought them delicious. But on this 18th of March morning there are no