was murdered; not till all was over, and the Versaillais in full possession of the city, with all its prisons and palaces. In the interval he had gone to Montmartre, and had witnessed the last desperate resistance of the Communists there, and afterwards in the cemetery of Père la Chaise.

"It was like hell upon earth,” he said, "as the shot and shell rained down upon the people whose frenzy of excitement made them court death in the streets. They were broyés, Madame, and men and women alike used the last energies of life, even as they expired, in hurling back destruction on their foes- their foes! who were children of France like themselves, their countrymen, their brothers!" As he spoke, the very vigour and earnestness of his description made it impossible to note all he said, but at the moment he brought before my eyes such a picture of the horrors of the Commune, as I could not even have imagined before. "May Paris never know such a time again!" I said.

66

Ah, Madame!" he answered, "La France est malade, ill with a chronic malady; and, like a sick person, she requires to be bled from time to time, every twenty years or so, but they bleed her at the heart, they bleed Paris, and she will require it again Dieu veuille that I do not live to see it!

"Till seven o'clock on the evening of the 24th of May," he answered, turning vehemently towards me; "and then, when I saw them loading their rifles to shoot that good, that defenceless old man, I could bear it no longer-je me suis sauvé. I fled out of La Roquette at the risk of my life. If they had caught me, they would have shot me too; but I was within these walls all the time Monseigneur was here. I saw how they treated him and the unfortunate men who were with him. I could not help him, of course mais c'était infame! I never He was all quivering with excitement thought to the last they would kill him, as he spoke but suddenly he subsided but when I did actually hear the order into his official stiffness and composure given-ah! it was too much!" The when he saw the head gardien appear turnkey said all this with the greatest along with my friend. They had come to rapidity, as if with a sense of relief in take me to that portion of the prison telling what he had felt; but just at that which had been inhabited by Monseigneur moment the Director came into the room, Darboy, Archbishop of Paris, and his whereupon in an instant my friend was companions in death, and which, it standing up erect, with his back to me, seemed, was under the exclusive care of looking as if he were not aware that I this superior officer. He was a tall, greywas present at all, whilst a quick glance haired old man, with a thoughtful, rather towards me, as he turned away, showed melancholy expression of face; and a few me that he wished me to look equally un- words which he casually dropped as he conscious of his vicinity. The Director led the way, showed me that it would deglanced round, and then went out again, pend entirely on his will how much or apparently having had no other purpose how little we saw, and also that to him but to see what I was doing. As soon as the murdered Archbishop had been an he had gone well out of sight and hear-object of the deepest veneration and reing, the turnkey came back, and, standing before me, began to pour out a history of During my rather lengthened stay in all he had done and said during that fatal Paris I had become aware, that amid the week of May, with a vehemence of voice chaos of conflicting ideas which makes up and gesture which no words can repro- the sum of public opinion at the present duce. I asked him when he returned to juncture, the one subject on which popuLa Roquette after his flight, and he an-lar feeling differs most widely is the fate swered, not till the Sunday following the of Monseigneur Darboy. There is a Wednesday on which the Archbishop deeply-rooted impression amongst the

spect.

"I wish you to look at these beds," said the gardien, "used by the worst canaille of Paris, that you may note the difference when you see what was provided for Monseigneur."

lower classes that the Archbishop con- | beds were placed close together, with arcealed immense stores of provisions dur-rangements for a complete system of suring the whole of the siege, on purpose veillance, by means of guichets in the parthat the poor might be starved. It is titions which divided them from the offihardly necessary to say how utterly false cers' rooms. is this accusation against a charitable and gentle old man; but the assertion has been repeatedly made to myself, by persons of humble station, with a vehemence which brooked no contradiction, and its almost universal acceptance amongst them is perfectly well known: the obvious inference drawn by them is, that his dreadful death is a just and right retribution; while on the other hand, all the more respectable classes who adhere to the Church believe, that living, he was a true father to his people, and in death a martyr and a saint.

They were excellent beds, far more comfortable than those given to our prisoners in England-consisting of a high spring mattress over which was one of flock, with good sheets, blankets, and pillows; they were perfectly clean, and the gardien said the linen was constantly changed.

"The convicts are better lodged than our soldiers," he added, "but now, Madame, will you pass into this corridor? It was here that Monseigneur was brought at once on his arrival from the prison of Mazas on the 22nd of May, 1871."

The near approach of the army of Versailles on the evening of that day had decided the authorities of the Commune to proceed to the murder of the hostages, and the whole number, most of whom were priests, were conveyed for that purpose from the Mazas, where they had been confined for some weeks, to the Dépôt des Condamnés.

I soon saw that the head gardien was one of these last, and that any reluctance he might feel in showing us the scenes of the massacre, would be from the fear that these "lieux saints," as he called them, might be profaned by indifferent or hostile spectators. It was not difficult, therefore, to satisfy him completely on that score as regarded ourselves; and in answer to my petition that he would not exclude me from any part of the prison connected with the terrible tragedy, he turned towards me and said emphatically, "Madame, to you I will gladly show everything without the smallest reserve, for I see that you will respect the memory Although the entire period of their imof the holy dead; you shall go over every prisonment had been spent under the inch of ground where Monseigneur trod, same roof, the hostages had never met from the moment he entered the prison till the moment when, on this evening, till he departed from this world alto- they were thrust, in parties of twenty and gether; and I will tell you every circum- thirty, into the great open waggons bestance of the forty-eight hours he passed longing to the Lyons Railway, which had within those walls: " and he did so, with been brought to convey them to La a minuteness of detail which, joined to Roquette, and in which they were exthe sight of the actual localities, made me posed to the full view of the crowd. almost feel as if I had myself followed the Some of them belonged to the same relisteps of the victims and their murderers, gious house-that of the Jesuits, Rue de even to the end. The gardien took us Sèvres; many had been friends, and to first into a room on the ground floor, all at least the Archbishop was known: where, he said, ordinary criminals con- but although they pressed each other's demned to the guillotine make their hand with mournful significance, it is "toilette de mort," interpreting the ghast- said that no word was spoken amongst ly term by saying that their hair had to them during their course through the inbe cut, and their upper clothes removed, surgent quarters of the Faubourg St. and he instanced Troppman as the last Antoine and La Bastille, where the frenwho had been so "dressed "in this room; zied populace followed them with the but when I asked if Monseigneur had coarsest insults and menaces, excepting been brought here, he shook his head, once, when one of the priests bent forand said they gave him no time for prep-ward to the Archbishop, and pointing to aration of any kind. Then we went up the crowd said, "Hélas! Monseigneur, a wide stone staircase, at the top of which voilà donc votre peuple!" was an immense dormitory for the prisoners at present under sentence. The

Night had fallen when they arrived at La Roquette, and a brigadier carrying a

lantern conducted them into the part of the prison where we now stood. It was a wide corridor, with long rows of cells on either side, and on the left hand a space in the centre was left vacant to admit of a window giving light to the whole; at the end was a corkscrew stair leading down to the outer court. The prisoners were immediately thrust into the cells, one by one, and left there for the night in pitch darkness, so that they did not know till next morning what sort of a place they were in.

"This was the cell occupied by Monseigneur on that night," said the gardien; and he opened the first door to the right and told me to go in. There was literally scarcely room for more than one person in the small narrow den into which I entered, and it contained nothing whatever but one wretched little bed, infinitely less comfortable in every way than those we had seen in the large dormitory. "But," I was told, "none who ever entered here had need of furniture, or would be likely to find rest on even the most luxurious couch, for those only passed this threshold who knew that the executioner was awaiting them, and that their grave was already dug."

very high walls. The Archbishop, however, felt too weak and ill to avail himself of the permission, and spent the greater part of the day lying in a half fainting state on his miserable bed. In addition to his other sufferings, he was starving of hunger, for the Commune had been driven back by the army of Versailles into the eleventh arrondissement, where alone therefore they were in power; and the supply of food being very scanty, the hostages were, of course, the last for whom they cared to provide. One of the Jesuit priests, Père Olivaint, who, four days later, was massacred in the terrible carnage of the Rue Haxo, had, however, secretly brought into the prison a little food, which had been conveyed to him by his friends while imprisoned at Mazas.

During the brief time of recreation, he was able to obtain access to the Archbishop, and, kneeling on the ground beside him, he fed him with a small piece of cake and a tablet of chocolate; and this was all the nourishment the poor old man received during the forty-eight hours he passed at La Roquette. Pere Olivaint comforted him also with the promise of the highest consolation he could have in the hour of death, as he knew that he would have it in his power to give him the holy Viaticum at the last supreme moment. Four portions of the reserved Sacrament had been conveyed to the priest, when in Mazas, in a little common card-box, which I saw at the Jesuits' house in the Rue de Sèvres, where it is preserved as a precious relic, and this he had succeeded in bringing concealed on his breast to La Roquette.

This cell was separated from the one next to it by a partition which divided in two the small window that gave light to both. The gardien told me to go up close to that part of the window which was in the Archbishop's cell, and, going into the next himself, he showed me that it was possible for the prisoners respectively occupying them to converse together, and even to touch each other's hands as there was a space of a few inches left between the end of the partition and the panes of glass. The gardien then told me that Monsieur Bonjean, Président de la Cour de Cassation, had been imprisoned in the second, and when it was discovered that Monseigneur and he were holding communication together, the Archbishop was at once removed to a place of stricter confinement, which should be shown to me at the other end of the corridor. He remained four-andtwenty hours in the cell where I stood from the evening of the 22nd to that of the 23rd. On the morning of this latter In the course of the afternoon the day the prisoners had been allowed to Archbishop's intercourse with Monsieur go down for half an hour into what is Bonjean having been discovered, he was called the "premier chemin de ronde" moved into cell No. 23, which we now that is, the first of two narrow stone-paved went on to see. On our way towards it, courtyards which surround La Roquette the gardien took us down a side passage, on three sides, and are separated from and, opening a door, introduced us into each other and from the outer world by 'a gallery, which we found formed part of

It had been intended that this day, the 23rd, should witness the murder of the hostages, and the order was, in fact, given for the immediate execution of the whole of the prisoners who had been brought in the evening before; but the Director, shrinking in horror from the task, succeeded in evading it, at least for a time, by pretending that there was an informality in the order. This day passed over, therefore, leaving them all still alive, but without the smallest hope of ultimate rescue.

the chapel, and was the place from which the prisoners of this corridor heard mass. Just opposite to us, on the same side with the High Altar, was a sort of balcony, enclosed by boards painted black and white, and surmounted by a cross, in which the gardien told us criminals condemned to death were placed to hear the mass offered for them just before their execution.

"Was the Archbishop allowed to come here for any service?" I asked.

the heavy bolts at last give way. He had by this time quite discovered the interest I took in the object of his own almost passionate veneration and love, and, turning to me, he said, "Madame, I would have opened this door for you if I had been obliged to send for a locksmith to do it, for I see how you feel for our martyred father; but you may well be content to gain admission to this cell, for thousands have asked to see it and have been refused. I am sole guardian of it, and I keep the key by my side all day, and under my pillow at night, and those only enter here who have some strong claim for admission."

Monseigneur! no, indeed! to perform any religious duty was the last thing they would have allowed him to do. He was never out of his cell but once, and that was on the morning of the day he He threw open the door as he spoke, died. I will show you afterwards where standing back to let me pass, and I went he went then. Voilà notre brave aumô-in. I stood for a few minutes within that nier," continued the gardien, pointing to an old priest who was sitting at a table in the body of the church, with two of the convicts seated beside him; "he is such a kind friend to all those wretches, but, unfortunately, he was at Mazas when Monseigneur was here."

He now took us back to the Archbishop's last abode.. The door of cell No. 23, unlike those of all the others which stood open, was not only closed, but heavily barred and bolted.

"This cell," said the gardien, "has never been used or touched in any way since Monseigneur occupied it—it has been kept in precisely the same state as that in which he left it the bed has not even been made; you will see it exactly as it was when he rose from it at the call of those who summoned him out to die."

miserable cell, unable to speak, so great was the shock I received from the conviction of the absolute malignity which must have dictated the arrangements of the poor Archbishop's last resting-place on earth. Having seen the other cells, and the comparatively comfortable beds provided for even the worst criminals amongst the convicts, I saw that it must have been a studied purpose which had prepared so squalid and revolting a couch for the aged and dying "father of his people." A low, rude framework of wood, totally different from the iron bedsteads in the other rooms, was spread with a palliasse of the coarsest description, torn open down the centre, so that the straw

-

- far from clean-with which it was scantily filled was all exposed to view; over this was thrown one ragged woollen covering, stained and black, as if it had been left unwashed after long use in some low locality, and one very small, hard bolster, which, apparently from sim

It seemed at first rather doubtful whether we should see it, for the gardien had taken a key from his pocket while he was speaking, and was now trying to un-ilar usage, had lost all appearance of havlock the door and open the many bolts, which were stiff and rusty from long disuse. With the exertion of his utmost strength he could not for a long time move them all, and. I thought, as the harsh grating noise of the slowly turning key echoed through the corridor, how terrible that sound must have been to the unfortunate Archbishop, when he last heard it, accompanied by coarse and cruel menaces shouted through the door, which told him it was opening to bring him out to a bitter death. The gardien made so many ineffectual efforts before he succeeded, that I felt quite afraid it would not be possible for him to admit us, and I said so to him, with an exclamation of satisfaction, when I saw

ing ever been white: in so many words, the whole furniture of the bed looked as if it had been extracted from the lowest and darkest den in the worst quarters of Paris, for the express purpose of making such a couch as one would shrink from touching with the tip of one's fingers. I need not enter into the details which made me with justice call it revolting, but I am sure that no English gentleman would have bid his dog lie down upon it. Such as it was, however, the Archbishop, faint and failing in the long death-agony which began for him when he entered La Roquette, had been fain to stretch upon it his worn-out frame and aching limbsbut not to sleep, for the gardien believed he never closed his eyes in that his last

night on earth. It was strictly true that
everything had been religiously preserved
in the precise state in which he left it-
we could see that the bed had not been
touched; the pillow was still displaced,
as it had been by the uneasy movements
of the poor grey head that assuredly had
found no rest thereon, and the woollen
cover was still thrown back, just as the
Archbishop's own hand had flung it off
when he rose at the call of his murderers,
to look for the last time on the face of Monseigneur lay," I said.
God's fair sun.

"Look what an Englishman did, who was allowed to enter here: when I had turned my head away just for one moment, he robbed me of this;" and he showed me that a little morsel of the woollen cover had been torn off, no doubt to be kept as a sacred relic.

"By all means," answered the gardien; 66 you are most welcome."

"Et il faisait un si beau temps," as an eye-witness said of that day. Mon Dieu! quelle belle journée de printemps nous avions ce maudit vingt-quatre Mai!" One happy recollection alone relieves the atmosphere of cruelty and hate which seems to hang round the stone walls of this death-chamber-for it was here on that last morning that the Archbishop re-too." ceived from the hands of Père Olivaint "I did not know you were English," the Sacred Food, in the strength of which he was to go that same day even to the Mount of God.

I took a very small quantity, and was turning to go away, when he said "Would you not like some more? Why have you taken so little?