Page:The Rise and Fall on the Paris Commune in 1871.djvu/467

 "My poor father! my poor parents!" said he to one of his companions in misfortune; "what despair for them! However, I pay for the position of my father, happy if my death can save a fellow-creature, and give some remorse to my executioners."

All the condemned believed that their last hour had come, and that their slow agony would that evening be ended. The last farewells were exchanged and the last prayers said, and each one took the necessary dispositions to send to their parents and friends the sad relics or last wishes which they left behind them.

Nevertheless the evening, the night passed without any new incident, in the midst of a horrible expectation, and an anxiety a thousand times more cruel than death itself. In the morning the noise of the firing approached sensibly the neighborhood of the prison and the Mairie of the 11th Arrondissement, where the last remnants of the Commune were sitting.

The prisoners had mostly to fear the final crisis; the defeat of the insurrection might be the signal for a general massacre. The bandits who surrounded and occupied the prison were not likely to abandon their prey without attempting to avenge themselves by butchering the remainder of the hostages. This design they attempted, in fact, to execute in the afternoon after the capture of the Mairie, when they beat a retreat in the direction of Père-Lachaise.

Ferré, Delegate of General Safety and member of the Commune, made his appearance at the prison, and calling for all the criminals condemned to the galleys who were detained in the prison until the time of their transportation arrived, restored them at once to liberty. Arms and ammunition were given to these bandits, who immediately commenced a massacre of a large number of prisoners, among whom were sixty-eight gendarmes.