Page:The Rise and Fall on the Paris Commune in 1871.djvu/441

 Vallès was led out from the theatre of the Chatelet at six o'clock on Thursday evening by the platoon charged with his execution. He was dressed in a black coat and light trousers of a yellowish tinge. He wore no hat, and his beard, which had been shaved off a short time before, was very short and turning gray.

In entering the street where his sentence was to be executed, a feeling of self-preservation restored to him the energy which had previously abandoned him. He wished to flee; but being held by the soldiers, he became horribly infuriated, calling, "A l'assassin!" twisting himself, seizing his executioners by the throat, biting them, in fact opposing a despairing resistance.

The soldiers commenced to be embarrassed and somewhat moved by this terrible struggle for life, when one of them passing behind him gave him a furious blow on the back with his musket, and the wretched man fell with a dull groan to the ground.

His spine was doubtless fractured; several shots were then fired upon him, and he received also two or three bayonet thrusts. As he still breathed, one of the soldiers advanced and discharged his chassepot in his ear. His body was then abandoned until it should be carried away by those charged, during those bloody days, with that commission.

On Thursday night the left bank of the Seine was completely freed from every element of insurrection. General de Cissey, who conducted all the military operations in that portion of Paris, and who has since been nominated Minister of War, is one of the most brilliant of the French officers. Rarely has any military career presented a finer list of services rendered, all his grades having been gained in campaign and on the field of battle. The army which he has been called to reorganize, and to