Saturday 19 March 2011

The reactionary, Dauban, describes the women of the Paris commune

He cannot help but admire
"The women were like the men: ardent, implacable, frenzied. Never had they turned out in such great number, braving peril and defying death. They dressed the horrible wounds made by case-shot, shells, and cylindrical bullets; they ran to the side of those who, under the pressure of unheard-of tortures, were howling, sobbing, and bellowing with pain and rage; then, their eyes filled with blood, their ears full of those cries torn from the last living shreds of flesh, they resolutely took up the chassepot [a kind of gun] and ran toward the same wounds and the same agony. And what dauntlessness at the barricades, what ferocity in combat, what presence of mind, against the wall, before the firing squad ..."

1 comment:

J said...
This comment has been removed by the author.