“After an hour we resumed our march, the mob saluting us with the choicest selection of curses and abusive epithets I ever heard.  We passed down the Rue Royale, the bystanders calling on us to look upon the ruin we had caused, through the Champs Elysees to the Arch of Triumph, marching bare-headed, under a burning sun.  At length, in the Avenue de l’Imperatrice, an order to halt was given.  There, weary and footsore, many dropped down on the ground, waiting for death, which we were now convinced was near at hand.  For myself, I felt utterly numbed and contented to die, and I think I should have received with equal indifference the news of my release.  I remember plotting in my mind how I could possibly get news of my fate conveyed to my parents in England.  Could I ask one of the soldiers to convey a message for me?  And would he understand what to do?  With such thoughts, and mechanically repeating the Lord’s Prayer to myself at intervals, I whiled away more than an hour, until an order, ‘Get up, all of you,’ broke the thread of my meditations.  Presently General the Marquis de Gallifet (he who had served the emperor in Mexico) passed slowly down the line, attended by several officers.  He stopped here and there, selecting several of our number, chiefly the old or the wounded, and ordered them to step out of the ranks.  His commands were usually couched in abusive language.  A young man near me called out, ’I am an American.  Here is my passport.  I am innocent.’  ’Silence!  We have foreigners and riff-raff more than enough.  We have got to get rid of them,’ was the general’s reply.  All chance was over now, we thought; we should be shot in a few minutes.  Our idea was that those who had been placed aside were to be spared, and those about me said:  ’It is just.  They would not shoot the aged and the wounded!’ Alas! we were soon to be undeceived.  Again we started, and were ordered to march arm in arm to the Bois de Boulogne.  There those picked out of our ranks by General de Gallifet—­over eighty in number—­were all shot before our eyes; yet so great was our thirst that many, while the shooting was going on, were struggling for water, of which there was only a scant supply.  I was not fortunate enough to get any.

“The execution being over, we proceeded, now knowing that our destination was Versailles.  Oh, the misery and wretchedness of that weary march!  The sun poured fiercely down on our uncovered heads, our throats were parched with thirst, our blistered feet and tired legs could hardly support our aching bodies.  Now and again a man utterly worn out would drop by the wayside.  One of our guard would then dismount, and try by kicks and blows to make him resume his place in the line.  In all cases those measures proved unavailing, and a shot in the rear told us that one of our number had ceased to exist.  The executioner would then fall into his place, laughing and chatting gayly with his comrades.