She walks with a rapid step, near the shadow of the wall; she is poorly dressed; her age is between forty and fifty; her forehead is bound with a red checkered handkerchief, from which hang meshes of uncombed hair. The face is red and the eyes blurred, and she moves with her look bent down on the ground. Her right hand is in her pocket, or in the bosom of her half-unbuttoned dress; in the other hand she holds one of the high, narrow tin cans in which milk is carried in Paris, but which now, in the hands of this woman, contains the dreadful petroleum liquid. As she passes a poste of regulars, she smiles and nods; when they speak to her she answers, “My good Monsieur!” If the street is deserted she stops, consults a bit of dirty paper that she holds in her hand, pauses a moment before the grated opening to a cellar, then continues her way, steadily, without haste. An hour afterwards, a house is on fire in the street she has passed. Who is this woman? Paris calls her a PÉtroleuse.^[108] One of these pÉtroleuses, who was caught in the act in the Rue Truffault, discharged the six barrels of a revolver and killed two men before being passed over to execution. Another was seen falling in a doorway of a house in the Rue de Boulogne, pierced with balls—but this one was a young girl; a bottle filled with petroleum fell from her hand as she dropped. Sometimes one of these wretched women, might be seen leading by the hand a little boy or girl; and the child probably carrying a bottle of the incendiary liquid in his pocket with his top and marbles.

NOTES:

[108] The incendiaries formed a veritable army, composed of returned convicts, the very dregs of the prisons, pale, thin lads, who looked like ghosts, and old women, that looked like horrible witches; their number amounted to eight thousand! This army had its chiefs, and each detachment was charged with the firing of a quarter. The order for the conflagration of public edifices bore the stamp of the Commune, and of the Central Committee, and the seal of the delegate at the Ministry of War. For the private houses more expeditive means were used. Small tickets, of the size of postage stamps, were found pasted upon walls of houses in different parts of Paris, with the letters B.P.B. (bon pour brÛler), literally, good for burning. Some of the tickets were square, others oval, with a bacchante’s head in the centre. They were affixed on spots designated by the chiefs. Every pÉtroleuse was to receive ten francs for each house she fired. Sept. 5,1871. Amongst the insurgents tried at Versailles, three pÉtroleuses were condemned to death, and one to imprisonment for life, a host of others being transported or otherwise punished.

[109] On the Wednesday succeeding the explosion of the powder-magazine in the garden of the Luxembourg, which unroofed a portion of the palace, and destroyed the windows, and did fearful damage to the surrounding houses, all the Communeux disappeared from the neighbourhood. The following night four men returned, bringing a quantity of petroleum with them. They gave orders that the six hundred wounded men who were then lying in the Palace should be taken away immediately. They had commenced their sinister project, and were pouring the petroleum about in the cellars, when the soldiers of the Brigade Paturel were informed of it, and arrived in time to prevent its execution. The criminals were taken and shot on the spot.