When, after the first attack of the Communist forces on those of the Versailles Government, the guns of Fort Valérien opened on Paris, the second bombardment began. It was far more destructive than that of the Prussians, the guns from the forts being so much nearer to the centre of the city. The shells of the Versaillais fell on friend and foe alike, on women and on children, on homes, on churches, and on public buildings. Three shots struck the Arch of Triumph, which the Prussians had spared. Such scenes as the following one, related by an American, might be seen daily:-- "Two National Guards passed me, bearing a litter between them. 'Oh, you can look if you like,' cried one; so I drew back the checked curtain. On a mattress was stretched a woman decently dressed, with a child of two or three years lying on her breast. They both looked very pale. One of the woman's arms was hanging down; her hand had been carried away. 'Where are they wounded?' I asked. 'Wounded! they are dead,' was the reply. 'They are the wife and child of the velocipede-maker in the Avenue de Wagram. If you will go and break the news to him, you will do us a kindness.'" The velocipede-maker may have been--probably was--a good, peaceable citizen, with no sympathy for disorder or anarchy; but doubtless from the moment that news was broken to him, he became a furious Communist. By order of General Cluseret every man in Paris was to be forced to bear arms for the Commune. His neighbors were expected to see that he did so, and to arrest him at once if he seemed anxious to decline. "Thus, every man walking along the street was liable to have the first Federal who passed him, seize him by the collar and say: 'Come along, and be killed on behalf of my municipal independence.'" It would be hardly possible to follow the details of the fighting, the arrests, the bombardment, or even the changes that took place among those high in office in the Council of the Commune during the seventy-three days that its power lasted; the state of things in Paris will be best exhibited by detached sketches of what individuals saw and experienced during those dreadful days. Here is the narrative of an English lady who was compelled to visit Paris on Easter Sunday, April 9, while it was under the administration of Cluseret.[1] [Footnote 1: A Catholic lady in "Red" Paris. London Spectator, April, 1871 (Living Age, May 13, 1871).]