“Quick, to the ambulance:”  said Jeanty Sarre.

“Where?”

“In the Rue du Cadran.”

Jeanty Sarre and Charpentier picked up the wounded man, the one by the feet, the other by the head, and carried him to the du Cadran through the passage in the barricade.

During all this time there was continued file firing.  There no longer seemed anything in the street but smoke, the balls whistling and crossing each other, the brief and repeated commands, some plaintive cries, and the flash of the guns lighting up the darkness.

Suddenly a loud void died out, “Forwards!” The battalion resumed its double-quick march and threw itself upon the barricade.

Then ensued a horrible scene.  They fought hand to hand, four hundred on the one side, fifty on the other.  They seized each other by the collar, by the throat, by the mouth, by the hair.  There was no longer a cartridge in the barricade, but there remained despair.  A workman, pierced through and through, snatched the bayonet from his belly, and stabbed a soldier with it.  They did not see each other, but they devoured each other.  It was a desperate scuffle in the dark.

The barricade did not hold out for two minutes.  In several places, it may be remembered, it was low.  It was rather stridden over than scaled.  That was all the more heroic.  One of the survivors[28] told the writer of these lines, “The barricade defended itself very badly, but the men died very well.”

All this took place while Jeanty Sarre and Charpentier were carrying the wounded man to the ambulance in the Rue du Cadran.  His wounds having been attended to, they came back to the barricade.  They had just reached it when they heard themselves called by name.  A feeble voice close by said to them, “Jeanty Sarre!  Charpentier!” They turned round and saw one of their men who was dying leaning against a wall, and his knees giving way beneath him.  He was a combatant who had left the barricade.  He had only been able to take a few steps down the street.  He held his hand over his breast, where he had received a ball fired at close quarters.  He said to them in a scarcely audible voice, “The barricade is taken, save yourselves.”

“No,” said Jeanty Sarre, “I must unload my gun.”  Jeanty Sarre re-entered the barricade, fired a last shot and went away.

Nothing could be more frightful than the interior of the captured barricade.

The Republicans, overpowered by numbers, no longer offered any resistance.  The officers cried out, “No prisoners!” The soldiers billed those who were standing, and despatched those who had fallen.  Many awaited their death with their heads erect.  The dying raised themselves up, and shouted, “Long live the Republic!” Some soldiers ground their heels upon the faces of the dead, so that they should not be recognized.  There, stretched out amongst the corpses, in the middle of the barricade, with his hair in the gutter, was seen the all-but namesake of Charpentier, Carpentier, the delegate of the committee of the Tenth Arrondissement, who had been killed, and had fallen backwards, with two balls in his breast.  A lighted candle which the soldiers had taken from the wine-shop was placed on a paving stone.