out a way of making them serve in several places at once.  Having followed the battalion, I found myself a few yards in front of the Arc de Triomphe.  Suddenly a hissing, whizzing sound is heard in the distance, and rapidly approaches us; it sounds very much like the noise of a sky-rocket.  “A shell!” cried the sergeant, and the whole battalion to a man, threw itself on the ground with a load jingling of saucepans and bayonets.  Indeed there was some danger.  The terrible projectile lowered as it approached, and then fell with a terrific noise a little way from us, in front of the last house on the left-hand side of the avenue.  I had never seen a shell burst so near me before; a good idea of what it is like may be had from those sinister looking paintings, that one sees sometimes suspended round the necks of certain blind beggars, supposed to represent an explosion in a mine.  I think no one was hurt, and the mischief done seemed to consist in a Wide hole in the asphalte and a door reduced to splinters.  The National Guards got up from the ground, and several of them proceeded to pick up fragments of the shell.  They had, however, not gone many yards when another cry of alarm was given, and again we heard the ominous Whizzing sound; in an instant we were all on our faces.  The second shell burst, but we did not see it; we only saw at the top of the house that had already been struck, a window open suddenly and broken panes fall to the ground.  The shell had most likely gone through the roof and burst in the attic.  Was there anyone in those upper stories?  However, we were on our legs again and had doubled the Arc de Triomphe.  I had succeeded in ingratiating myself with the men of the rear-guard, and I hoped to be able to go as far with them as I pleased.  Strange enough, and I confess it with naif delight, I did not feel at all afraid.  Although half an inch difference in the inclination of the cannon might have cost me my life, still I felt inclined to proceed on my way.  I begin to think that it is not difficult to be brave when one is not naturally a coward!  Beneath the great arch were assembled a hundred or so of persons who seemed to consider themselves in safety, and who from time to time ventured a few steps forward, for the purpose of examining the damage done to Etex’s sculptured group by three successive shells.  But in the Avenue de la Grande Armee only three Federals were to be seen, and I think I was the only man in plain clothes they had allowed to go so far.  I could distinctly perceive a small barricade erected in front of the Porte Maillot on this side of the ramparts.  The bastion to the right was hard at work cannonading the heights of Courbevoie; great columns of smoke, succeeded by terrific explosions, testified to the zeal of the Communist artillerymen.  Beyond the ramparts the Avenue de Neuilly extended, dusty and deserted.  Unfortunately the sun blinded me, and I could not distinguish well what was going on in the distance.  By this time the sound of