enough, though it might have been cleaner.  Having no evidence of my nationality, I felt it was useless to apply to the Embassy; all the friends I had in Paris who could have identified me as all Englishman had left the city some days before, and as I reflected, it appeared to me that if required to serve the Commune, no other course would be left to me.  One thing, however, I resolved,—­to keep myself as much in the background as possible.  In three or four hours I was conducted before the members of the Commune for that arrondissement.  They received me civilly, asked my name, age, profession, etc., and then one of them, taking up a paper, proceeded to say that I must be placed in a battalion for active service, as I was under forty years of age.  ‘Gentlemen,’ I replied, ’your political affairs are of no interest to me, and it is my misfortune to be placed in this unpleasant predicament.  But I tell you plainly, you may shoot me if you will, but I absolutely refuse to leave Paris to fight the Versaillais, who are no enemies of mine in particular, and I therefore demand to be set at liberty.’  Upon this they all laughed, and told me to leave the room.  After a little time I was recalled, and told I should be placed in a compagnie sedentaire.  I again remonstrated, and demanded to be set at liberty, when they said I was drunk, and ordered me to be locked into my cell, whence I was transferred to my battalion the next morning.  I found my captain a remarkably pleasant man, as indeed were all my comrades in my company, and I can never forget the kindness I met with from them.  My only regret is my utter ignorance of their fate.  I can scarcely hope they all escaped the miserable fate that overtook so many; but I should rejoice to know that some were spared.  On entering the captain’s office and taking off my hat, I was told to put it on again, ‘as we are all equal here, Citizen;’ and after the captain had said a few words to me, I was regaled with bread, sardines, and wine,—­the rations for the day.  The captain was a young man of six-and-twenty, with a particularly quiet, gentlemanly manner (he was, I believe, a carpet-weaver).  He had been a soldier, and had served in Africa with distinction.

“The account of my daily duties as a member of this company from April 10 to May 23 may be here omitted.  I became orderly to one of the members of the Commune, and being supplied with a good horse (for as an Englishman I was supposed to be able to ride), I spent much of my time in carrying messages.  On the morning of Tuesday, May 23, our colonel told us of the death of Dombrowski, who had been shot during the night, though particulars were not known.  I was sorry to hear of his end, for he had been disposed to be kind to me, and I knew then that the cause of the Commune was utterly lost, as he was the only able man among them.  The night before, we had seen such a fire as I never saw before, streaming up to the sky in two pillars of flame.  I was told it