It would be difficult to find in the history of human revolutions a spectacle at once as burlesque and terrible as that just presented by the too celebrated Commune of Paris. It began with a long trail of blood at the entrance of the Place Vendôme, and signalized its wretched end by the horrible massacre of La Roquette. A witness of these two bloody scenes, I shall depict them with but few comments, but with perfect exactness of detail. At the risk of being incomplete, I shall only relate what I saw. In speaking of the confinement at Mazas and the massacres at La Roquette, I shall barely add some incidents, the truth of which was vouched for by the companions of my cruel captivity. Comments would only weaken the impressiveness of these facts. I leave my readers to draw their own conclusions from a moral and social point of view, only remarking that the first account, relating to the events that transpired in the Place Vendôme during the latter half of March, was drawn up a few days after they occurred. Though the first essays of the Commune were not marked by the nameless horrors that drew upon its end the reprobation of all civilized nations, I have thought it right not to alter my first account. Perhaps some observations may not appear sufficiently severe, and others not wholly justified by the events. I give them to the public as they were noted down at the time. By comparing the account written at the end of March with that of the end of May, an exact idea may be formed--I was going to say a faithful photograph may be had--of the revolutionary condition of Paris at the beginning and the end of the Commune. We may thereby be enabled to judge of the development, during this short interval, of a brutal revolution--the implacable enemy of all institutions, human and divine. In spite of the mingled emotions of horror and disgust I feel in recalling the men and the deeds I speak of, I may be permitted to manifest two feelings that prevail over all others in the depths of my soul--a redoubling of constant sympathy for the unhappy city of Paris, only rendered dearer by its misfortunes, and an ardent gratitude for the infinite mercy of God, which preserved me, contrary to all human expectation, from the bullets of a herd of assassins more shameless and lower than their predecessors of 1793. I. THE PLACE VENDÔME ON THE NIGHT OF THE TWENTY-FIRST OF MARCH.