e
of glass fell in fragments to the ground. The insurgent who was in front
did not even turn his head; these men seem to have become quite reckless
and deaf to everything.

What the troops feared the most were the sharp-shooters hidden in the
houses, aiming through little holes and cracks; suddenly a snap would be
heard, and the officers would lift their glassed to their eyes; more
often nothing was to be seen at all, but if the slightest shadow were
visible behind a window curtain, the order was, "Search that house!" The
executions did not take place in the apartments. Now and then an
inhabitant or two were brought down into the street, and those never
returned!

XCIV.

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 Trevise 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 Ministere
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!

[Illustration: RUINS OF THE RUE ROYALE, LOOKING TOWARDS THE PLACE DE LA
CONCORDE AND ACROSS THE RUE DU FAUBOURG SAINT-HONORE.]

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,