Pietri had answered,—­

“Then there will be 50,000 francs.”

This communication, accompanied by urgent prayers, had been made to me by Yvan in the Rue de Monthabor, while we were still at Dupont White’s.

This said, I continue my story.

The massacre of the 4th did not produce the whole of its effect until the next day, the 5th.  The impulse given by us to the resistance still lasted for some hours, and at nightfall, in the labyrinth of houses ranging from the Rue du Petit Carreau to the Rue du Temple, there was fighting.  The Pagevin, Neuve Saint Eustache, Montorgueil, Rambuteau, Beaubourg, and Transnonain barricades were gallantly defended.  There, there was an impenetrable network of streets and crossways barricaded by the People, surrounded by the Army.

The assault was merciless and furious.

The barricade of the Rue Montorgueil was one of those which held out the longest.  A battalion and artillery was needed to carry it.  At the last moment it was only defended by three men, two shop-clerks and a lemonade-seller of an adjoining street.  When the assault began the night was densely dark, and the three combatants escaped.  But they were surrounded.  No outlets.  Not one door was open.  They climbed the grated gateway of the Passage Verdeau as Jeanty Sarre and Charpentier had scaled the Passage du Saumon, had jumped over, and had fled down the Passage.  But the other grated gateway was closed, and like Jeanty Sarre and Charpentier they had no time to climb it.  Besides, they heard the soldiers corning on both sides.  In a corner at the entrance of the Passage there were a few planks which had served to close a stall, and which the stall-keeper was in the habit of putting there.  They hid themselves beneath these planks.

The soldiers who had taken the barricade, after having searched the streets, bethought themselves of searching the Passage.  They also climbed over the grated gateway, looked about everywhere with lanterns, and found nothing They were going away, when one of them perceived the foot of one of these three unfortunate men which was projecting from beneath the planks.

They killed all three of them on the spot with bayonet-thrusts.  They cried out, “Kill us at once!  Shoot us!  Do not prolong our misery.”

The neighboring shop-keepers heard these cries, but dared not open their doors or their windows, for fear, as one of them said the next day, “that they should do the same to them.”

The execution at an end, the executioners left the three victims lying in a pool of blood on the pavement of the Passage.  One of those unfortunate men did not die until eight o’clock next morning.

No one had dared to ask for mercy; no one had dared to bring any help.  They left them to die there.

One of the combatants of the Rue Beaubourg was more fortunate.  They were pursuing him.  He rushed up a staircase, reached a roof, and from there a passage, which proved to be the top corridor of an hotel.  A key was in the door.  He opened it boldly, and found himself face to face with a man who was going to bed.  It was a tired-out traveller who had arrived at the hotel that very evening.  The fugitive said to the traveller, “I am lost, save me!” and explained him the situation in three words.