Page:The invasion of the Crimea vol. 1.djvu/328

 28 G ORIGIN OF THE WAR OF 1S53 ments permitted himself to speak with a kind of joy of the number of women who suffered. After accusing the gentler sex of the crime of shelter- ing men from the fire of the troops, the Colonel writes it down that 'many an Amazon of the ' Boulevard has paid dearly for her imprudent ' collusion with that new sort of barricade;' and then he goes on to express a hope that women will profit by the example and derive from it 'a lesson ' for the future.' * One woman who fell and died clasping her child, was suffered to keep her hold in death as in life, for the child too was killed. Words which long had been used for making figures of speech, recovered their ancient use, being wanted again in the world for the picturing of things real and physical. Musket-shots do not shed much blood in proportion to the slaughter which they work ; but still in so many places the foot-pavement was wet and red, that, except by care, no one could pass along it without gather- ing blood. Round each of the trees in the Boule- vards a little space of earth is left unpaved in order to give room for the expansion of the trunk. The blood, collecting in pools upon the asphalt, drained down at last into these hollows, and there becoming coagulated, it remained for more than a day, and was observed by many. 'Their ' blood,' says the English officer before quoted, — ' their blood lay in the hollows round the trees ' the next morning when we passed at twelve ' o'clock.' ' The Boulevards and the adjaceni
 * Mauduit, p. 278.