"Yes, and get pinched to-morrow morning!"

Jean was still harboring his idea. He had found quite a flotilla of
small boats there, but they were all securely fastened with chains; how
was he to get one loose and secure a pair of oars? At last he discovered
two oars that had been thrown aside as useless; he succeeded in forcing
a padlock, and when he had stowed Maurice away in the bow, shoved off
and allowed the boat to drift with the current, cautiously hugging the
shore and keeping in the shadow of the bathing-houses. Neither of them
spoke a word, horror-stricken as they were by the baleful spectacle that
presented itself to their vision. As they floated down the stream and
their horizon widened the enormity of the terrible sight increased, and
when they reached the bridge of Solferino a single glance sufficed to
embrace both the blazing _quais_.

On their left the palace of the Tuileries was burning. It was not yet
dark when the Communists had fired the two extremities of the structure,
the Pavilion de Flore and the Pavilion de Marsan, and with rapid strides
the flames had gained the Pavilion de l'Horloge in the central portion,
beneath which, in the Salle des Marechaux, a mine had been prepared by
stacking up casks of powder. At that moment the intervening buildings
were belching from their shattered windows dense volumes of reddish
smoke, streaked with long ribbons of blue flame. The roofs, yawning as
does the earth in regions where volcanic agencies prevail, were seamed
with great cracks through which the raging sea of fire beneath was
visible. But the grandest, saddest spectacle of all was that afforded by
the Pavilion de Flore, to which the torch had been earliest applied and
which was ablaze from its foundation to its lofty summit, burning with a
deep, fierce roar that could be heard far away. The petroleum with which
the floors and hangings had been soaked gave the flames an intensity
such that the ironwork of the balconies was seen to twist and writhe in
the convolutions of a serpent, and the tall monumental chimneys, with
their elaborate carvings, glowed with the fervor of live coals.

Then, still on their left, were, first, the Chancellerie of the Legion
of Honor, which was fired at five o'clock in the afternoon and had
been burning nearly seven hours, and next, the Palace of the Council
of State, a huge rectangular structure of stone, which was spouting
torrents of fire from every orifice in each of its two