Eight or ten men come flying down the Chaussée d’Antin; they join, crying out, “The Versaillais have taken the barracks; they are establishing a battery. Delescluze has been captured at the Ministère de la Guerre.”—“It is false!” exclaims a vivandière; “we have just seen him at the Hôtel de Ville.”—“Yes, yes,” cry out other women, “he is at the Hôtel de Ville. He gave us a mitrailleuse. Jules Vallès embraced us, one after another; he is a fine man, he is! He told us all was going well, that the Versaillais should never have Paris, that we shall surround them, and that it will all be over in two days.”—“Vive la Commune!” is the reply. The barricade is by this time finished. They expect to be attacked every second. “You,” said a sergeant, “you had better be off, if you care for your life.” I do not wait for the man to repeat his warning. I retrace my steps up the Boulevard, which is less solitary than it was. Several groups are standing at the doors. It appears quite certain that the troops of the Assembly have been pretty successful since they came in. The Federals, surprised by the suddenness and number of the attacks, at first lost much ground. But the resistance is being organised. They hold their own at the Place de la Concorde; at the Place Vendôme they are very numerous, and have at their disposal a formidable amount of artillery. Montmartre is shelling furiously. I turn up the Rue Vivienne, where I meet several people in search of news. They tell me that “two battalions of the Faubourg Saint Germain have just gone over to the troops, with their muskets reversed. A captain of the National Guard has been the first in that quarter to unfurl the tricolour. A shell had set fire to the Ministère des Finances, but the firemen in the midst of the shot and shell had managed to put it out.” At the Place de la Bourse I find three of four hundred Federals constructing a barricade; having gained some experience, I hurry on to escape the trouble of being pressed into the service. The surrounding streets are almost deserted; Paris is in hiding. The cannonading is becoming more furious every minute. I cross the garden of the Palais Royal. There I see a few loiterers, a knot of children are skipping. The Rue de Rivoli is all alive with people. A battalion marches hurriedly from the Hôtel de Ville; at the head rides a young man mounted on a superb black horse. It is Dombrowski. I had been told he was dead. He is very pale. “A fragment of shell hit him in the chest at La Muette, but did not enter the flesh,” says some one. The men sing the _Chant du Départ_ as they march along. I see a few women carrying arms among the insurgents; one who walks just behind Dombrowski has a child in her arms. Looking in the direction of the Place de la Concorde, I see smoke arising from the terrace of the Tuileries. In front of the Ministère des Finances, this side of the barricade is a black mass of something; I think I can distinguish