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BETWEEN THE CZAK AND THE SULTAN. 291 XL Troops are sometimes obliged to kill insurgents CHAP. XIV. in actual figlit, and unarmed people standing in 1_ the line of fire often share the fate of the com- bjTwWch 8 batants ; what that is the whole world under- vanished stands. But also an officer has sometimes caused bJfSfetin. people to be put to death, not because they were e " ls fighting against him, nor even because they were hindering the actual operations of the troops, but because he has imagined that under some prob- able change of circumstance their continued presence might become a source of inconvenience or danger, and he has therefore thought it right to have them shot down by way of precaution ; but generally such an act as this has been pre- ceded by the most earnest entreaties to disperse, and by repeated warnings. This may be called a precautionary slaughter of bystanders, who are foolhardy or perverse, or wilfully obstructive to the troops. Again, it has happened that a slaugh- ter of this last-mentioned sort has occurred, but without having been preceded by any such re- quest or warning as would give the people time ' ville se jetaient comme des tigres sur les prisonniers attaches ' les mains derriere le dos. lis les assommaicnt h, coup de ' casse-tfite. lis les laissaient ralant sur la pierre oti plusieurs ■ d'entre eux ont expire. . . . II en est ainsi ni plus ni ' moins : nous 1'avons vu des feneTres de nos cellules qui s'ouv- • raicnt sur la conv.'—Le Coup d'Etat, par Xavier Durrieu, ancien Representant du Peuple, pp. 39, 40. — Note to 4th Edi- tion. 1S63.