PARIS AFTER THE CAPTURE.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 27, 29 July 1871, Page 2

PARIS AFTER THE CAPTURE.

A SCENE OF DESOLATION BRUTALITY OF THE VERSAILLISTS. Paris, May 26. —It would be impossible to describe as it merits the aspect of Paris at the present moment. On all sides there is nothing to be seen but material and moral ruin. It is not only the burning of the public edifices, of which, only a few days ago, Paris was so justly proud, that is to be lamented, but the utter destruction of all confidence, of all sentiment of a common origin, which has hitherto been a remarkable part of the Parisian character. So far from caring for his neighbor, every Parisian now looks with suspicion on his dearest friends, and is inclined to keep aloof from those he loves best. Arrests are made in the streets every hour, and for the most trifling causes. No one is spared—foreigners least of all—for the Versaillists, among other foolish ideas, have got it into their heads that foreigners were the chief promoters of the insurrection. Two Americans were arrested last night, and Mr Washburne had to bestir himself in order to have them set at liberty. Two officers of the English army were arrested on Wednesday because they had been seen near a barricade, and were only released by the intercessions of an attache of the British Embassy. In fact, everybody is arrested without respect of either person or nationalities. Mr Washburne has been very badly received by Marshal M 'Mahon’s staff, because he did his duty and remained in Paris to protect the very large amount of property belonging to American citizens which remained in the city. Besides, the American Minister had to look after the Alsatians and Lorrainers, and to protect them from the Commune. He informed me yesterday that he had signed nearly 5000 passes for inhabitants of Alsace and Lorraine, who were anxious to claim the protection of their new nationality. After all the protestations of attachment to France to which we have been treated lately, it does seem a little strange that the Alsatians should be m such a hurry to swear allegiance to their enemies. In the streets all is destruction, ravage and desolation. Lamps and fountains and statues have been smashed to atoms, and houses have been so damaged by shells that the first gale of wind will Rrilg them crashing to the ground. All the finest palaces and public buildings in Paris are a heap of smoking ruins. On the heights of La Villette and Belleville the fight still rages, and the cannonade rings in our ears. Troops of tattered, begrimed prisoners are constantly passing through the streets, accompanied by soldiers with loaded rifles on their shoulders ; and they are only too ready to use their Chassepots. Yesterday I saw a troop of prisoners, with many women among them, conducted up the Rue Tromelet, just behind the Madeleine. An unfortunate woman, exhausted by fatigue, dropped half fainting on the ground. “ Get up,” said an officer. ct I cannot,” she replied. The officer then drew his revolver and. shot her through the heart. Scenes of a similar character are of daily occurrence. Yesterday, close to my own house, a poor old man, who had been an inhabitant of my quarter for years, was denounced by a woman in the street. He was arrested by a soldier, and taken to the Maire. This morning I heard, to my horror, that he had been shot. He leaves four children and an English wife. The brutality of the officers is only equalled by their ignorance. A friend of mine, an Englishman, had placed the red ensign of Great Britain at his doorway, and tho Communists had respected the house as that of a foreigner, A lieutenant of marine came, yesterday, to make a search in the house. “ What is that flag ?” he asked of its owner. John Bull got angry, and answered that French sailors ought to know it well, for it had soared above the tri-color in many a bloody fight. The Louvre and the National Library and the Luxembourg have escaped the flames. But the most frightful disaster is the burning of the Mont de Piete. During the last eight months people by hundreds of thousands have put valuables into that institutition for safety. Fancy their desolation at the destruction. One cannot understand what drove the insurgents to so terrible a step, for tbe working men have more to lose, if it be possible, by the destruction of the Mont de Piete, than the rich.

THE HORRORS OF VICTORY —DESPERATE

ACTS OF THE FEMALE INSURGENTS.

I took a walk down the Rue Rivoli, towards the Hotel de Ville, to judge of the amount of damage done, and at the corner of the Rue Castiglione became aware of the approach of a great crowd of people yelling and shaking their fists. The cortege was headed by a company of mounted gendarmes, behind whom were two artillerymon dragging between them a solid bundle of rags that tottered and staggered, and fell down under the blows that were showered upon it by all who were within reach. It was a woman who had been caught in the act of spreading petroleum. Her face was bleeding, and her hair streaming down her back, from which her clothes had been torn. On they dragged her, followed by a hooting mob, till they reached the corner of the Louvre, and there they propped her up against a wall, already half dead from the treatment she had received. The crowd ranged itself in a circle, and I have never seen a picture so perfect and complete in its details than was presented by that scene. The gasping, shrinking figure in the centre, surrounded by a crowd who could scarcely be kept from tearing her in pieces, who waved their arms, crying “ Down her ; down her !” on one side a barricade still strewn with broken guns and hats —a dead National Guard lying in the fosse—behind, a group of mounted gendarmes, and then a prospective of ruined streets and blackened houses, culminating in the extreme distance in the still burning Hotel de Ville. Presently two revolvers were discharged, and the bundle of rags fell forward in a pool of blood. The popular thirst for vengeance was satisfied, and so the crowd dispersed in search of further excitement elsewhere. HOW THE PALACES AND PRIVATE RESIDENCES WERE FIRED. Paris shall not exist, if Paris does not belong to the Commune. Such was their hellish resolve, and they proceeded to carry out their threat of des. troying the capital which they could not retain. They set to work in three distinct ways. In the palaces and public offices which they commanded they disposed at regular intervals, sometimes bottles, sometimes pots of petroleum. When the vessels of petroleum were arranged at proper distances, one of them would be overturned and ignited ; the flames would rapidly spread, and the whole building would soon be past salvation. It was in this way that the Tuilleries, the Palais Royal, the Hotel de Ville, the Palais of the Legion of Honor, and other celebrated public edifices were set in flames. This arrangement was made in the Ministry of Marine, but the wretches engaged in the work of destruction had to fly before they could set fire to the pots of petroleum which they had planted in the most likely corridors. There was a second method adopted for the destruction of private houses. When it became necessary to retire from a particular barricade, the Guards tore to pieces the beds which formed part of the barricades ; took the tow out of the beds, dipped it in petroleum, and loaded their guns with it. Then they fired the tow into the windows of the houses. It was in this way that the block of houses in the Rue Royale, facing the Madeleine, was set on fire. Still a third method: men and women were going about Paris with bottles of petroleum in their pockets or hid about their dresses. They threw these bottles down into the ground floors of every dwelling they could get at. If there was not room to get the bottle through, the neck of the bottle could get it into certain air holes which belonged to the construction of French houses; the liquid would be poured in, and a lighted match would be sent in after it. In this way very many private houses were sent in flames ; and many hundreds of women were taken in the act all day—some of them shot upon the spot—All day, too, the inhabitants apprised of what was going on, were engaged in stopping up the sky-lights, gratings, and air holes, which con nected their ground floors with the pavement. Wherever you turn —in every street—you saw the inhabitants busy, plastering, bricking, or shutting up with planks the two feet of their houses next to the pavement. Not only were women taken, but the firemen also in great numbers were arrested, The fact

is that many adherents of the Commune entered the ranks of the firemen, partly to distinguish themselves and partly to spread the fire instead of extinguishing it. THE EXTENT OF THE SLAUGHTER. The executions of the insurgents are wholesale. It is estimated that upwards of 2000 persons have been shot already on the left bank of the Seine alone, evidently a small portion of the total number. Wherever women and children are to be seen leaning over the parapet of the Seine intently regarding some object below, one may be sure that the attraction is a group of hideously mutilated corpses of men who have been brought down to the river side, and then with their backs to the wall have met their doom. On the sloping roads leading down from the Quay to the river may also be seen inequalities where the road has been recently disturbed, and where the freshly-turned earth indicates burial-places. Not far from these bodies were lying several dead horses, from which the people were cutting steaks. The inside of the Hotel de Ville presents a curious scene, the solid masses of stone and lime of which the rubbish is composed having fallen in the form of a crater, which fills up the whole central place. Under the mound are said to be buried from 200 to 300 insurgents, who were unable to escape at the last moment, and thus fell the victims to the conflagration they had themselves originated. The mutilation of the ornamental work of this magnificent specimen of architecture is simply hideous ; there is scarcely a square inch of the facade untouched by shot or shell, and the huge stone columns inside splintered or defaced, support a mere shell. YOUNG WOMEN BURIED IN THE RUINS. There is a yellow, ghastly look in the atmosphere, so charged with the smoke of burning houses and public buildings the sun shines feebly through it. The Tuilleries is a mere shell. The smoke from the Ministry of Finance and the magnificent public buildings at the corner of the Rue Royal and the Rue de Rivoli is still rising from their mins, and in the celebrated bonnet maker’s, Madame Drouart, No 3 Rue de Rivoli, well known to many of your lady readers, a number of young women employed there took refuge in the cellars, and are now stifled beneath a pile of rubbish twenty or thirty feet high. The Rue Royal, which I could only see a portion of, is like a Ninevitish mound of rubbish, and the fire is still extending. Turning back by the Boulevard Haussmann, I reached the Grand Opera, a mass of barricades, and too full of soldiers to be a pleasant resort, especially as petroleum shells were falling on the Boulevarde des Italiens. All those palaces which made Paris the wonder and admiration of modern times are heaps of smouldering ruins; her finest boulevards shattered, her gardens laid waste, her gutters running with blood, and an awful pall setting down heavily over her dying agonies as she completes, in compliance with “ the inexorable logic of facts,” which has formed her only religion, her own suicide. A WOMAN WHO HAD KILLED FOUR MEN IS CAPTURED AND SHOT. You have heard, doubtless, of the vivandieres of the National Battalions, which have marched brightly and bravely to the combat with, the corps, or with the men who claimed their wild and more than half unwomanly devotion. One woman of this class, straight, tall, splendidly set, with vigor in her face and beauty in every limb—she could not have been more than 25, and she was a woman perfectly made —I saw her suffer a frightful fate. Captured, I know not how, she had killed with a revolver, before her hand could be stayed, a Versaillist officer and three of his men. She looked “ out and out” a fury ; her handsome face was black with powder, her lips especially made livid by hasty biting of cartridges ; her hair hung in dishevelled tangles about her handsome but ferocious face ; and her eyes gleaming with an over-strained courage that mounted even to madness, blazed defiance on the red-breeched crowd who had her at their mercy. I will not linger on the scene. Her hands were tied, and, with her back against the wall, she died—pierced through and through with shots from

the rifles of M. Thiers’ troops. I could not blame them—but 1 could not help being deeply sorry for her. THE CAPTURED MEN AND WOMEN AT SATORY. We first went up stairs, where, upon the first and second floors, were the female prisoners, between 300 and 400 in number. The house was evidently unused at ordinary times. There was no balustrade to the staircase, and no furniture whatever in the rooms, only some straw on the ground. In this place there was a close, noisome smell. There were women of all ages from 15 to 60, together with a few young boys ; a few sitting down, the rest standing about. There was an anxious, wan look upon them, and all turned and made a little movement as I entered. It seemed as if they half hoped, half feared, that their hour had arrived to be interrogated. Some of the women were fero-cious-looking viragos, the tricoleuses of the last revolution, the furies who poured blazing petroleum upon the heads of the troops as they advanced in this insurrection. A few were mild, frightened-looking creatures, who had probably stood by some husband they loved on the barricades, their love overcoming their fear. Some stared boldly and defiantly at me, with faces from which all show of modesty had disappeared years ago ; others looked down abashed at the position and company in which they found themselves. Some were in rags, with wild hair, unkempt and matted, falling on their shoulders. Others were in decent clothing, and had made some effort to tidy their hair, and to preserve the look of women. It was an intensely painful sight. TRAGICAL FATE OF THE COMMUNIST LEADERS. The Government troops are vindictive if not even brutal, in following up their victory. A trio of the Communist leaders was captured on Thursday night. They were Jules Valles, Ferre, and Longuet. Valles was made prisoner after the others, in rear of the Theatre du Chatelet. His comrades had been taken very shortly before. Valles was dragged forward by the Versailles, and one of their non-commissioned officers struck him on the neck with a sword. In his anger and agony Valles struck back, and immediately an extemporavy shooting party was drawn up, and fired into the body of the unfortunate rebel. But Valles had the bad taste not to die at once; he writhed and twisted, and groaned upon the ground until nearly all who were within sight and hearing had to avert their eyes and move away from the sight of his most horrible suffering. The Captain commanding the firing party told me that “ they let him suffer on purpose.” His fellow captive, Ferre, whose doom was but deferred, cried out, “ Oh, Captain ! in the name of mercy put him out of pain,” and the ap peal was so far successful that the captors then shot their prisoner dead. Lefrancais, Gambon, and Amouroux, were shot in the Rue de le Banque, against the wall of the stamp office. Raoul Rigault finished his days in the courtyard of the Ecole Militaire. Courbet the painter, who ordered the destruction of the Vendome Column, was found hiding in a cupboard, not quite large enough to conceal him, in the Ministry of Finance, and, attempting some resistance, was, according to reports, shot on the spot. M aljournal, who has boasted ever since the fatal 22nd of March, when the Party of Order was fired upon in the Rue de le Paix, that he gave the order, has met the fate which he so richly merits. Dombrowski died in the bedroom of the Hotel de Ville, formerly occupied by M’ile Haussman. The day after his escape from La Muette he received three rifle shots while at the barricade in the Rue d’Ornano. He was transferred from there to the Hotel de Ville, where he died of his wounds. Delescluze was killed on Tuesday at the barricades of the Chateau de Eau. His face was much disfigured, by a portion of a burning wall which had fallen on it. His identity is amply proved by papers found in his pocket. The insulgent General Blisson, who was captured, was shot yesterday, as well as Tavernier, a member of the Commune. Milliere, a Deputy of the National Assembly, was arrested on Thursday in the Place Luxembourg. He was thence led to the Place de Pantheon, and there shot. When the soldiers were raising

their rifles to dispatch him, he cried, “ Vive la Commune !” “ Vive T Humanite !” “ Vive le peuple !” A FIGHT FOR LIFE ATTEMPT TO BURN MEN ALIVE. General Borel made the following report regarding the fate of the persons held as hostages :—The Archbishop of Paris and Judge Bonjeau were shot in prison, and their bodies carried to tha Maire of the Twentieth Arrondissement. Sixteen others, with a group of gendarmes, were taken to Pera La Chase at night, under the 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 mattrasses, 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 necleus of resistance, and at five o’clock on Saturday evening the Commune, seized with a positive panic, fled, carrying off with them the money chest, and directing their flight to the Maire of the Twentieth Arrondissement. A PARIS EDITOR SHOT BY ORDER OF RIGAULT. The fate of Gustave Chaudey, one of the writers of the “ Siecle,” and a man much esteemed, you no doubt know. He was carried to Sainte Pelagie, and shot there by the order of Raoul Rigault. Came Raoul Rigault to him on Tuesday forenoon, at 11 o’clock, with the words, “I have come to announce that this is your last hour.” “ How ?” cried Chaudey ; “ you mean to assassinate me ?” “ You are going to be shot,” was the reply. The guards of the prison refused to shoot the prisoner, and Rigault had to go for other executioners. They came into the court where Chaudey was set up against a wall. Rigault waved his sword as the signal to fire, and they fired. Rut they had hit too high, the poor victim was only wounded, and at last he had to be dispatched by being shot through the ear with a pistol. CONDITION OF THE STREETS AFTER THE FIGHTING EXTENT OF THE DESTRUCTION. The aspect of the Boulevards is the strangest sight imaginable. I followed them from the Porte St. Martin to the Rue de la Paix. Strewn over the streets were branches of trees, and fragments of masonry that had been knocked from the houses, bricks and mortar, torn proclamations, shreds of clothing half concealing blood stains, were now the interesting and leading features of that fashionable resort; foot passengers were few and far between, the shops and cafes hermetically sealed, excepting where bullets had made air holes, and during my whole afternoon’s promenade I only met three other carriages besides my own. The Place de I’Opera was a camping ground for artillery, the Place Vendome a confusion of barricades guarded by sentries, and the Rue Royale a mass of debris. Looked at from the Madeleine, the desolation and ruin of that handsome street were lamentable to behold. The Place de la Concorde was a deserf, and in the midst of it lay the statue of Lille with the head off. The last time I looked on that face it was covered with crape, in mourning for the entry of the Prussians. Near the bridge werfiT twenty-four corpses of insurgents, laid out in a row, waiting to be buried under the neighboring paving-stones. To the right the skeleton of the Tuilleries reared its gaunt shell, the framework of the lofty wing next the Seine still standing, but the whole of the roof of the central building was gone, and daylight visible through all the windows right into the Place de Carrousel. General M'Mahon’s headquarters were at the Affaires Estrangeres, still intact, After a visit there, I passed the Corps Legislate, also uninjured by fire, but marked by shot and shell, and so along the Quais the whole way to the Mint, at which point General Vinoy had estab-

fished his head-quarters. At the corner of the Ruedeßacthe destruction was something apalling. The Rue de Bac is an impassable mound of luins fifteen to twenty feet high, completely across the street as far as I could see, The Legion d’ Honneur, the Cours des Comptes, and Conseil d’Etat, were still smoking, but there was nothing left of them but the blackened shells of their noble facades to show how handsome they had once been. At this point, in whatever direction one looked, the same awful devastation met the eye—to the left of the smouldering Tuilleries, to the right the long line of ruins where fire had swept through the magnificient palaces on the Quai, and overhead again to-day a cloud of smoke more black and abundant even than yesterday, incessently rolling its dense volumes from behind Notre Dame, whose two towers were happily standing unsnjuried. The fire issued from the Grenier D’Abondance and other building in the neighborhood of the Jarden des Plantes. In another direction the Arsenal was also burning. On the opposite side of the river were the smoking ruins of the Theatre Chatelet and the Hotel de Ville, A large part of the Palais Royal is burned.