spoke—­“Only that?  I thought you looked older,” the accommodating individual would answer, at the same time putting into your hand a paper on which was written some cabalistic sign.  One day I had taken it into my head to go and spend two hours at Bougival, and my pass bore the strange word “Carnivolus” written on it.  Provided with this mysterious document, I was enabled to procure a first-class ticket and jump into the next train that started.  I was free, and nothing could have prevented my going, if such had been my wish, to proclaim the Commune at Mont Blanc or Monaco.

How the times are changed!  The Committee of Public Safety and the Central Committee now join together in making the lives of the poor refractaires[88] a burthen to them.  I do not speak of the disarmaments, which have nothing particularly disagreeable about them, for an unarmed man may clearly nourish the hope that he is not to be sent to battle.  But there are other things, and I really should not object to be a little over eighty for a few days.  Domiciliary visits have become very frequent.  Four National Guards walk into the house of the first citizen they please, and politely or otherwise, explain to him that it is his strict duty to go into the trenches at Vanves and kill as many Frenchmen as he can.  If the citizen resists he is carried off, and told that on account of his resistance he will have the honour of being put at the head of his battalion at the first engagement.  These visits often end in violence.  I am told that in the Rue Oudinot a young man received a savage bayonet thrust because he resisted the corporal’s order; and as these occurrences are not uncommon, the refractaires cannot be said to live in peace and comfort.  They are subject to continual terror, the sour visage of their concierge fills them with misgivings, he may be one of the Commune.  As to going to bed, it must not be thought of; it is during the hours of night that the Communal agents are particularly active.  This necessity of changing domicile has lead to certain Amelias and Rosalines and other ladies of that description having the words “Hospitality to Refractaires” written in pencil on their cards.  Men who decline to take advantage of such opportunities have to go about from hotel to hotel, giving imaginary names, suspicious of the waiters, and awaking at the least sound, thinking it is the noise of feet ascending the stairs, or the rattle of muskets on the landing.  The day before yesterday a number of refractaires, having the courage of despair, walked to the Porte Saint-Ouen—­“Will you let us out?” asked they of the commanding officer, who answered in a decided negative; whereupon the party, which was three hundred strong, fell upon the captain and his men, whom they disarmed, and five minutes afterwards they were running free across the fields.

Others employ softer means of corruption; resort to the wine-shops of Belleville, where they make themselves agreeable in every way, and soon succeed in entering into friendly conversation with some of the least ferocious among the Federals of the place.