"I was thankful when the moment came to attack the heights of Montmartre, and to engage in open warfare. General Pradié, our brigadier-general, marched at our head, greatly exposed, because of the gold lace on his uniform. An insurgent, whom we had taken prisoner, suddenly sprang from his guards, seized the general's horse, and presented at him a revolver that he had hidden in his belt. The general, furious, cried, 'Shoot him! shoot him!' But we dared not, they were too close together. Suddenly the man sprang back, gained the street, and though twenty of us fired in haste at once, every ball missed him. Leaping like a goat, he made his escape. The general was very angry. Step by step we made our way, slowly, it is true, but never losing ground. About two hundred yards from Montmartre were tall houses and wood-yards where many insurgents had taken refuge. These sent among us a shower of balls. We had sharp fighting in this place, but succeeded in gaining the position. Then we halted for about two hours, to make preparations for an attack upon the heights. Some of us while we halted, fired at the enemy, some raided houses and made prisoners; some went in search of something to eat, but seldom found it. I was fortunate, however, while taking some prisoners to the provost-marshal, to be able to buy a dozen salt herrings, four pints of milk, nine loaves of bread, some prunes, some barley-sugar, and a pound of bacon. I took all I could get, and from the colonel downward, all my comrades were glad to get a share of my provisions. The heights of Montmartre had been riddled by the fire from Mont Valérien. Sometimes a shell from our mortars would burst in the enemy's trenches, when a swarm of human beings would rush out of their holes and run like rabbits in a warren." The punishment of the unfortunate, as well as of the guilty, was very severe. Their imprisonment in the Great Orangery at Versailles, where thousands of orange-trees are stored during the winter, involved frightful suffering. A commission was appointed to try the prisoners, but its work was necessarily slow. It was more than a year before some of the captured leaders of the Commune met their fate. Those condemned were shot at the Buttes of Satory,--an immense amphitheatre holding twenty thousand people, where the emperor on one of his fêtes, in the early days of his marriage, gave a great free hippodrome performance, to the intense gratification of his lieges.