[Illustration:  HORSE CHASSEUR ACTING AS A COMMUNIST ARTILLERY MAN, ATTENDED BY A GAMIN SPONGER.]

As it would have been most imprudent to follow the railway cutting, or to have gone back by the Avenue de la Grande Armee, where the Versailles shells were still falling, I walked up the Rue du Debarcadere, and then turned into the Rue Saint-Ferdinand, and soon found myself in the Place des Ternes, in front of the church.  There was a most dismal aspect about the whole of this quarter.  Situated close to the ramparts, it is very much exposed, and had suffered greatly.  Nearly all the shops were shut; some of the doors, however, of those where wine or provisions, are sold, were standing open, while on the shutters of others were inscribed in chalk, “The entrance is beneath the gateway.”  I was astonished to see that the church was open, a rare sight in these days.  Why, is it possible that the Commune has committed the unqualifiable imprudence of not arresting the cure of Saint-Ferdinand, and that she is weak enough—­may she not have to regret it!—­to permit the inhabitants of Ternes to be baptised, married, and buried according to the deplorable rites and ceremonies of Catholicism, which has happily fallen into disuse in the other quarters of Paris?  I can now understand why the shells fall so persistently in this poor arrondissement:  the anger of the goddess of Reason (shall we not soon have a goddess of Reason?) lies heavily on this quarter, the shame of the capital, where the inhabitants still try to look as if they believed in heaven!  In spite of everything, however, I entered the church; there were a great many women on their knees, and several men too.  The prayers of the dead were being said over the coffin of a woman who, I was told, was killed yesterday by a ball in the chest, whilst crossing the Avenue des Ternes, just a little above the railway bridge.  A ball, how strange! yet I was assured such was the case.  It is pretty evident, then, that the Versaillais were considerably nearer to Paris, on this side at least, than the official despatches lead us to suppose.

On returning to the street I directed my steps in the direction of the Place d’Eylau.  Two National Guards passed me, bearing a litter between them.—­“Oh, you can look if you like,” said one.  So I drew back the checked curtain.  On the mattress was stretched a woman, decently dressed, with a child of two or three years lying on her breast.  They both looked very pale; one of the woman’s arms was hanging down; her sleeve was stained with blood; the hand had been carried away.—­“Where were they wounded?” I asked.—­“Wounded! they are dead.  It is the wife and child of the velocipede-maker in the Avenue de Wagram; if you will go and break the news to him you will do us a good service.”