were taken by the crowd for deserters, and hailed with 'Ah, les bon garçons! Ah, les bons patriotes!' and we shouted back in turn with all our might, 'Vive la Commune! Vive la République!' Those words were in my mouth the whole of the next three days. The people never saw a horseman without shrieking to him, 'How is all going on at present?' To which the answer was invariably, 'All goes well! _Vive la Commune! Vive la République!_' though the enemy might at that moment be within five hundred yards. Indeed, the infatuation and credulity displayed by the French, not only during the insurrection, but the whole war, was absurd. Tell them on good authority that they had lost a battle or been driven back, they would answer that you were joking, and you might think yourself lucky to escape with a whole skin; but say nothing but 'All goes well! We have won!' and without stopping to inquire, they would at once cheer and shout as if for a decisive victory." [Footnote 1: At that time the execution of the hostages was taking place within the prison.] The next duty of our Englishman was to act as mounted orderly to captains who were ordered to visit and report on the state of the barricades, also to command all citizens to go into their houses and close the doors and windows. There was little enthusiasm at the barricades, and everywhere need of reinforcements. The army of the Commune was melting away. The most energetic officer they saw was a stalwart negro lieutenant,--possibly the man who, as De Compiègne tells us, had scared some Versaillais in a cellar on the 22d of May. On the night of Thursday, May 25, the Column of July was a remarkable sight. It had been hung with wreaths of _immortelles_, and those caught fire from an explosive. Elsewhere, except for burning buildings, there was total darkness. There was no gas in Paris, of course. And here our Englishman goes on to say that so far as his experience went, he saw no _pétroleuses_ nor fighting women, nor did he believe in their existence.