A FIGHT FOR LIFE-ATTEMPT TO BURN MEN ALIVE.

Auckland Star, Volume II, Issue 478, 22 July 1871, Page 3

A FIGHT FOR LIFE-ATTEMPT TO BURN MEN ALIVE.

General Borel made the following report recarding the fate of the persons held as hosU" * _he Archbishop of Paris and Judge Bbnfeau were shot in prison, and their bodies carried to the mairie of the Twentieth Arrondissomont. Sixteen others, with a group of thirtye'ght gendarmes, were taken to Pere La Chaise at night under tho pretext of being transferred to another place of confinement, and were then shot. Four others, whose names are unknown, were shot on Saturday. The total thus known comprises 64 victims. On Saturday the surviving prisoners were about to be shot by the Commune, which had established its headquarters at the prison, when, at the instigation of one of the old Staff, who had been retained in his office by the Commune, they rebelled and withdrew into one portion of the prison, where they barricaded themselves, and where the insurgents tried to burn them alive. The mattresses, however, being of wool, preserved them, so that they were not much burned. A hundred soldiers who had remained in the hands of the Commune when the barracks of Prince Eugene were captured, formed among themselves a very solid nucleus of resistance, and at five o'clook on Saturday evening the Commune, seized with a positive panic, fled, carrying off with them the money chest, and directing their flight to tho Mairie of the Twentieth Arroudissement.