A woman was killed ten paces from me just as I ran under the porte-cochere.

I can swear that, up to that time, there was neither barricade nor insurgents; there were _hunters, and there was game_ flying from them,--that is all.' "This image 'hunters and game' is the one which immediately suggests itself to the mind of all those who beheld this horrible proceeding.

We meet with the same simile in the testimony of another witness:-- "'At the end of my street, and I know that the same thing was observed in the neighbouring ones as well, we saw the gendarmes mobiles with their muskets, and themselves in the position of _hunters waiting for the game to rise_, that is to say, with their muskets at their shoulders, in order that they might take aim and fire more quickly.
"'In order that those persons who had fallen wounded near the doors on Rue Montmartre might receive the first necessary attentions, we could see the doors open from time to time and an arm stretched out, which hastily drew in the corpse, or dying man, whom the balls were striving to claim as their own.' "Another witness hits upon the same image:-- "'The soldiers stationed at the corners of the streets awaited the people as they passed, _like hunters lying in wait for their game_, and as soon as they saw them in the street they fired at them _as at a target_.

A great many persons were killed in this manner on Rue du Sentier, Rue Rougemont, and on Rue du Faubourg-Poissonniere.' * * * * "'"Go on," said the officers to the unoffending citizens who demanded their protection.

At these words they went their way quickly and with confidence; but it was merely a watchword which meant _death_; for they had gone only a few steps before they fell.' "'At the moment the firing began on the boulevards,' says another witness, 'a bookseller near the carpet warehouse was hastily closing his shop, when a number of fugitives who were striving to obtain admittance were suspected by the troops of the line, or the gendarmerie mobile, I do not know which, of having fired upon them.