Page:The Rise and Fall on the Paris Commune in 1871.djvu/468

 Five gendarmes, who were then in the infirmary, alone escaped.

The honorable resistance of most of the keepers, who, aided by the prisoners themselves, barricaded the doors and halls, saved the lives of the hostages.

Towards four o'clock the horde thus held in check had a panic, and took to flight, crying that the Versailles troops were upon them. In an instant the prison was freed from its assailants, and the prisoners of every category were at liberty to flee or to await the arrival of the troops, which was near at hand.

Many of the hostages, fearing the return of some of these madmen, drunk with wine and blood, or the execution of the horrible menaces of fire which had been made for several days, resolved to make their escape and gain the outposts of the army of Versailles.

Some of them had the good fortune to succeed, while others, not knowing the quarter, betrayed rather than protected by incomplete disguises, or failing in coolness and presence of mind, were massacred in the neighborhood of the prison by rioters who were prowling with arms around La Roquette, and who were truly fiendish in their chasing of priests.

Four of the unhappy clergy perished thus at the corner of the prison Des Jeunes-Détenus; their bodies, mutilated in the most horrible manner, and hardly conserving the human form, were thrust on the spot into the same hole, where they remained until Sunday morning.

Among them, the only one who could be identified was the curé of Bonne-Nouvelle, whose church, like that of Notre-Dame-des-Victoires, was one of the most devastated. Most of the objects employed in the exercise of divine service had been carried off or destroyed.

A few days after the arrest of the unfortunate M. Bécourt, curate of Bonne-Nouvelle, a band of Federals ar