It is the middle of the night; and I awake with a terrible start. A bright red light streams through the panes. I throw open the window; the sky to the left is one mass of dark smoke and lurid streaks of light—it is a fire, Paris on fire!^[105] I dress and go out. At the corner of the Rue de TrÉvise a sentinel stops me, “You can’t pass.” I am so bewildered that I do not think of noticing whether he is a Federal or a soldier. What am I to do, where am I to go? Although an hour ago balls were whistling around, there are now people at every window. “The MinistÈre des Finances is on fire! the Rue Royale! the Louvre!” The Louvre! I can scarcely avoid a cry of horror. In a minute the enormity of the disaster has broken upon me. Oh! chefs-d’oeuvre without number! I see you devoured, consumed, reduced to ashes! I see the walls tottering, the canvases fall from the frames and shrivel up; the “Marriage of Canaan” is in flames! Raphael is struggling in the burning furnace! Leonardo da Vinci is no more! This was, indeed, an unexpected calamity! Fortune had reserved this terrible surprise for us! But I will not believe it, these rumours are false, doubtless! How should these people who inhabit this quarter know what I am ignorant of? Yet over our heads the sky is tinged with black and red!

A strange smell fills the air, like that of a monstrous petroleum lamp just lighted. That dreaded word, petroleum, makes me shudder. Once distinctly I hear the sound of a vast body falling heavily. Not to be able to obtain information is terrible; not to know what is going on, while all around seems on fire; the day is beginning to break, the musketry and the cannonading commences afresh, it is a hell, with death for its girdle! In front of me I see the corner of a building lighted up by the fire, on which little spirals of smoke are reflected from the distant conflagration. I rush home, I want to hide myself, to sleep, to forget. When I am in my room, I see through the white curtains of the window a bright light. I tremble and rush to the window! It is the gilt letters of a signboard, on the opposite side of the way, that are darting forth brilliant flashes, borrowed from the distant flames.

NOTES:

[105] The 24th May the COMMITTEE FOR PUBLIC SAFETY issued these cold-blooded decrees:—

“Citizen MilliÈre, at the head of one hundred and fifty fuse-bearers, is to set fire to all houses of suspicious aspect, as well as to the public monuments of the left bank of the Seine.
“Citizen Dereure, with one hundred and fifty fuse-bearers, is charged with the 1st and 2nd Arrondissement.
“Citizen Billioray, with one hundred men, is charged with the 9th, 10th, and 20th Arrondissements.
“Citizen VÉsinier, with fifty men, has the Boulevards of the Madeleine and of the Bastille especially entrusted to him.
“These Citizens are to come to an understanding with the officers commanding the barricades, for the execution of these orders.

“DELESCLUZE, RÉGÈRE, RANVINE, JOHANNARD, VÉSINIER, BRUNEL, DOMBROWSKI.
“Paris, 3 Prairial, year 79.”

[106] This MilliÈre, formerly an advocate and writer on the Marseillaise, was a native of St-Etienne, and fifty-four years of age, a cool speaker, and advocate of advanced ideas, that got him several imprisonments. In March 1870 he was taken from the prison of Sainte-PÉlagie to give evidence at Tours against Pierre Bonaparte for the murder of Victor Noir, where his lucid depositions told greatly against the prisoner. When regaining his liberty he became more revolutionary than ever, writing during the siege in the Patrie en Danger. At the peace he became one of the members for Paris, and sat at Bordeaux and Versailles, agitating social subjects and the law of lodgers. About the 10th of April he took part with the Commune, and at the entrance of the troops was taken at the Luxembourg after having fired six rounds from a revolver, was shot on the steps of the Pantheon, and died as he opened his shirt front, shouting, “Vive la RÉpublique! Vive la LibertÉ! Vive l’HumanitÉ!”