Toward evening the second battalion of the 61st, to which Wilhelm belonged, received the order to advance.

Over pleasure-gardens and vineyards they went, through poor people's deserted houses the four companies of skirmishers worked their way to the entrance of the Rue St.Catherine, a long, narrow street.

Just at the end stood a large three-storied factory, whose front, filled with large high windows, looked like a framework of stone and iron.

At every window there was a crowd of soldiers; the whole front bristled with death-dealing weapons.
Sixteen windows were on each floor, and at every window at least three rows of four soldiers stood.

It was therefore easy to reckon the total number at six hundred at the very least.
As the points of the German bayonets came round the corner in sight of this fortress a terrible change took place: in the twinkling of an eye all the openings blazed out at once, and the building seemed to shake from its foundations; forty-eight red tongues of flame blazed out suddenly to right and left, as if so many throats of Vulcan or abysses into hell had been opened, and soon the whole building was wrapped in a thick white smoke, through which the men were invisible.