Their destination proved to be Brest, which they reached at midnight of the next day, after travelling in cattle-cars for about thirty hours. They were transferred at once to a hulk lying in the harbor, clean shirts and water to wash with were given them, which seemed positive luxuries. Their treatment was not bad; they had hammocks to sleep in, and permission to smoke on deck every other day. But the sufferings they had gone through, and the terribly foul air of the _orangerie_, had so broken them down that most of them were stricken by a kind of jail-fever. Many, without warning, would drop down as if in a fit, and be carried to a hospital ship moored near them, to be seen no more. Our Englishman remained three weeks on board this hulk, and then escaped; but by what means he did not, in October, 1871, venture to say. He concludes his narrative with these words:-- "When I think of those who were with me who still remain in the same condition, and apparently with no chance of release, my heart grows sick within me, and I can only be thankful to Almighty God for my miraculous and providential escape. In conclusion let me say, as one who lived and suffered among them, that so far from speaking hardly of the miserable creatures who have been led astray, one ought rather to pity them. The greater part of those who served the Commune (for all in Paris, with but few exceptions, did serve) were 'pressed men' like myself. But those who had wives and children to support and were without work--nay, even without means of obtaining a crust of bread (for the siege had exhausted all their little savings)--were forced by necessity to enroll themselves in the National Guard for the sake of their daily pay. "In the regular army of the Commune (if I may so style the National Guard) there were but few volunteers, and these were in general orderly and respectable men; but the irregular regiments, such as the _Enfants Perdus, Chasseurs Fédérés, Défenseurs de la Colonne de Juillet_, etc., were nothing but troops of blackguards and ruffians, who made their uniforms an excuse for robbery and pillage. Such men deserved the vengeance which overtook the majority of them." [Illustration: _PRESIDENT ADOLPH THIERS._] CHAPTER XVIII. THE FORMATION OF THE THIRD REPUBLIC. The fall of the Commune took place in the last week of May, 1871. We must go back to the surrender of Paris, in the last week of January of the same year, and take up the history of France from the election of the National Assembly called together at Bordeaux to conclude terms of peace with the Prussians, to the election of the first president of the Third Republic, during which time France was under the dictatorship of M. Thiers.