Such disorderly scenes occurred at this women's club, that the landlord of the Triat Gymnasium at last took possession of the premises again, and the ejected members vainly endeavoured to find accommodation elsewhere. Nevertheless, another scheme for organizing an armed force of women was started, and one day, on observing on the walls of Paris a green placard which announced the formation of a "Legion of Amazons of the Seine," I repaired to the Rue Turbigo, where this Legion's enlistment office had been opened. After making my way up a staircase crowded with recruits, who were mostly muscular women from five-and-twenty to forty years of age, the older ones sometimes being unduly stout, and not one of them, in my youthful opinion, at all good-looking, I managed to squeeze my way into the private office of the projector of the Legion, or, as he called himself, its "Provisional Chef de Bataillon." He was a wiry little man, with a grey moustache and a military bearing, and answered to the name of Felix Belly. A year or two previously he had unjustly incurred a great deal of ridicule in Paris, owing to his attempts to float a Panama Canal scheme. Only five years after the war, however, the same idea was taken up by Ferdinand de Lesseps, and French folk, who had laughed it to scorn in Belly's time, proved only too ready to fling their hard-earned savings into the bottomless gulf of Lesseps' enterprise. I remember having a long chat with Belly, who was most enthusiastic respecting his proposed Amazons. They were to defend the ramparts and barricades of Paris, said he, being armed with light guns carrying some 200 yards; and their costume, a model of which was shown me, was to consist of black trousers with orange-coloured stripes down the outer seams, black blouses with capes, and black kepis, also with orange trimmings. Further, each woman was to carry a cartridge-box attached to a shoulder-belt. It was hoped that the first battalion would muster quite 1200 women, divided into eight companies of 150 each. There was to be a special medical service, and although the chief doctor would be a man, it was hoped to secure several assistant doctors of the female sex. Little M. Belly dwelt particularly on the fact that only women of unexceptionable moral character would be allowed to join the force, all recruits having to supply certificates from the Commissaries of Police of their districts, as well as the consent of their nearest connexions, such as their fathers or their husbands. "Now, listen to this," added M. Belly, enthusiastically, as he went to a piano which I was surprised to find, standing in a recruiting office; and seating himself at the instrument, he played for my especial benefit the stirring strains of a new, specially-commissioned battle-song, which, said he, "we intend to call the Marseillaise of the Paris Amazons!"