Page:The Rise and Fall on the Paris Commune in 1871.djvu/559



is permitted to have his food brought to him from outside the prison; and in answer to my suggestion that I should be glad to send him anything he might desire, or furnish him with any money he might want, he said he was not in need at present. I was the first man he had seen from the outside since his imprisonment, and he had not been permitted to see the newspapers, or to have any intelligence of passing events. I shall make application to the Prefect of Police to be allowed to send him newspapers and other reading matter, and shall also avail myself of the permission granted me to visit him, to the end that I may afford him any proper assistance in my power. I cannot conceal from myself, however, the great danger he is in, and I sincerely hope that I may be instrumental in saving him from the fate which seems to threaten.

"I have the honor to be, "Very respectfully, "Your obedient servant, "."

The trial of the chiefs of the Commune has been several times postponed; but little doubt can exist of the fate which awaits them, if we may judge by that of a subordinate named Ferdinand Sencier, who has been condemned to death by the First Council of Versailles.

This man was an artilleryman at the Porte Maillot, renowned for his unerring aim, and who boasted that he never aimed a gun at the Versailles troops without killing his man. His behavior at the tribunal was anything but prepossessing; accused of desertion in time of war, of having formed a part of insurrectional bands, of massacre and pillage, he aggravated his situation by fanfaronades which nearly caused his expulsion from court. A still more horrible accusation, however, was brought against him; it was that, while he was firing upon Neuilly in the