At the same moment, without unfurling the red flag, without Mayor Bailly having issued a single order, a company of the city guard opened fire, but shot in the air in the direction of the bank occupied by Lehiron and his pack. This first fusillade, although harmless, nevertheless threw the populace into inexpressible terror. Almost immediately, we were pierced by volleys from the whole platoon, this time deadly. I saw the face of the fine old man who had stood in front of me blanch under the blood which poured from his riddled forehead. A young woman who held her four or five-year-old son above her head lest he be smothered in the press, felt her child grow rigid and heavy; he had been shot through the body. Piercing cries or suppressed moans uttered on all sides of me told that other shots also had taken effect. The fusillade continued. A frenzy of flight, of everyone for himself, fell upon the huddled mass; the people elbowed and trod upon one another. In the midst of this frightful pell-mell, I lost my balance and fell over the body of the old man, which had until then been supported erect by the crowding of my neighbors. The aged body saved my life; it prevented me from being crushed under the feet of the throng. Nevertheless, I received several deep wounds on the head. I felt the blood flow copiously from them. My senses swam, and I completely lost consciousness. * * * * * When I came to myself, the clock of the Military School was striking ten. The moon, from the midst of a cloudless and star-strewn sky, lighted up the Field of Mars. The coolness of the night revived me. My first thought was for my sister--what anguish must have been hers! I saw, here and there, the wandering lights of several lanterns, by aid of which men and women had come to seek out among the dead and dying those whom they had left behind them. Soon, some distance from me, I perceived a woman, tall and slender, in a white robe. This woman bore no lantern; she came and went hurriedly; halting and bending over, she contemplated the victims, she seemed to interrogate their features. My heart bounded; I divined that it was Victoria. "Sister!" I cried, weakly. I was not deceived. Learning by the popular rumor of the massacre which had taken place, Victoria had run to the Field of Mars to find me. Her tender cares summoned back my strength. She stanched the blood from my wounds, dressed them, and, supporting me on her arm, assisted me to the gate opening on Great Rock. We passed by the scaffolding on which had been erected the Altar of the Country. The steps were buried under corpses. Arrived home with Victoria, I wished, after an hour's rest, to inscribe in my journal this very night the record of this fatal day of the 17th of July, 1791.