There were yells of agony, there were frightful oaths—and there was a frantic retreat. The strikers fled to the open fields, a few hundred yards away. The troops demolished the barricades, and occupied every street. When darkness had descended upon Villeneuve-St-Georges it was known that three strikers had been shot dead, and nearly a hundred more or less seriously wounded. Four officers and a number of soldiers had been injured. At nine o’clock a group of strikers, pushing a barrow containing the body of one of the dead strikers, stopped before the general commanding the troops, and said: “Salute your victim.” The general gravely saluted. Away went the strikers with their barrow. All night long the cuirassiers and dragoons patrolled Villeneuve-St-Georges and the surrounding open country. In the town itself no one could sleep for the clatter on the cobble-stones of the horses’ hoofs. Such were the scenes in the sandpit district yesterday; but to-day—the day after—a comparative calm has succeeded the storm. When I enter Villeneuve-St-Georges, officers and soldiers are walking and riding about the streets, and now and again a patrolling party goes by. Here and there, groups of strikers, in their baggy blue trousers. And in the wine-shops, which are full, long, animated conversations. Who was in the wrong? No one denies that it was the strikers who fired first; no one disputes the patience of the troops, who remained imperturbable, motionless in their saddles, amidst a storm of bricks and bottles, for two whole hours. Then, most of the soldiers fired in the air: had they fired on the men the slaughter would have been terrific. Here in this wine-shop, I hear all this, and not only from the soldiers, but from the strikers, who are present. Yes; the soldiers and strikers, twenty-four hours after the conflict, are drinking and conversing together: fraternising, resting their hands on one another’s shoulders. Very rough and very large are the hands of the navvies: the hands that hurled the bottles and bricks. And very grimy, very weary, very eyesore are the dragoons and cuirassiers, after having patrolled the district all night. Extraordinary this “fraternising”! The enemies of yesterday sit at the same table. The men in uniform and the men in the baggy blue trousers clink glasses together. “Of course I have done my military service, but I was never sent to a strike,” says one of the navvies. “You were lucky,” replies a dragoon, with a laugh. Who was at fault? “It is all the fault of les patrons—the masters,” states a striker; and he proceeds to relate how he and his colleagues are underpaid and overworked: how they are treated as slaves by the masters. It is also “Clemenceau’s fault.” Why did he send troops? There was no disorder: there was no need for soldiers. “Clemenceau has treated us as he treated the miners at Courrières.” And the men in the blue trousers mutter angrily against the French Premier.