Thionville bitten his hay; nor Lille City surrendered itself. The Lille trenches opened on the 29th of the month; with balls and shells, and redhot balls; as if not trenches but Vesuvius and the Pit had opened. It was frightful, say all eye-witnesses; but it is ineffectual. The Lillers have risen to such temper; especially after these news from Argonne and the East. Not a Sans-indispensables in Lille that would surrender for a King's ransom. Redhot balls rain, day and night; 'six-thousand,' or so, and bombs 'filled internally with oil of turpentine which splashes up in flame';—mainly on the dwellings of the Sansculottes and Poor; the streets of the Rich being spared. But the Sansculottes get water-pails; form quenching-regulations: 'The ball is in Peter's house!' 'The ball is in John's!' They divide their lodging and substance with each other; shout Vive la République; and faint not in heart. A ball thunders through the main chamber of the Hôtel-de-Ville while the Commune is there assembled: 'We are in permanence,' says one coldly, proceeding with his business; and the ball remains permanent too, sticking in the wall, probably to this day.[1]
The Austrian Archduchess (Queen's Sister) will herself see red artillery fired: in their over-haste to satisfy an Archduchess, 'two mortars explode and kill thirty persons.' It is in vain; Lille, often burning, is always quenched again; Lille will not yield. The very boys deftly wrench the matches out of fallen bombs: 'a man clutches a rolling ball with his hat, which takes fire; when cool, they crown it with a bonnet rouge.' Memorable also be that nimble Barber, who when the bomb burst beside him, snatched up a sherd of it, introduced soap and lather into it, crying, 'Voilà mon plat à barbe, My new shaving-dish!' and shaved 'fourteen people' on the spot. Bravo, thou nimble Shaver; worthy to shave old spectral Redcloak, and find treasures!—On the eighth day of this desperate siege, the sixth day of October, Austria, finding it fruitless, draws off with no pleasurable consciousness; rapidly,
- ↑ Bombardement de Lille (in Hist. Parl. xx. 63–71).
