king the son of Chaudey under the chin, laughingly said to him,
"Tomorrow, little one, we shall shoot papa;" in spite of all the madmen
and fools that constituted the Commune de Paris, who after being guilty
of more extravagances than are necessary to get a man sent to the
Madhouse of Charenton, and more crimes than are sufficient to shut him
up in prison at Sainte-Pelagie, had managed, by means of every form, of
wickedness and excess, to make our beloved Paris a frightened slave,
crouching to earth under their abominable tyranny; in spite of
everything, I could not have dreamed that even their demoniac fury could
have gone so far as to try to burn Paris, after having ruined it! Nero
of the gutter! Sardanapalus drunk with vitriol! So your vanity wanted
such a volcano to engulf you, and you wished to die by the light of such
an _auto-da-fe_. Instead of torches around your funeral car, you wished
the Tuileries, the library of the Louvre, and the Palace of the Legion
of Honour burnt to ashes, the Rue Royale one vast conflagration, where
the walls as they fell buried alive women and children, and the Rue de
Lille vomiting fire and smoke like the crater of Vesuvius.

[Illustration: PALAIS DE JUSTICE, PARTLY DESTROYED. SAINTE CHAPELLE,
SAVED.]

It has pleased you that thousands of families should be ruined, their
savings scattered in the ashes of the vanished papers of the burnt
Ministere des Finances and the _Caisse des depots_. In seeing that the
art-galleries of the Louvre had remained intact, only its library burnt,
you must have been seized with mad rage. How! Notre Dame not yet in
flames? Sainte-Chapelle not on fire? Have you no more petroleum, no
more flaming torches? The cry "To Arms!" is not enough, you must shout
"To Fire!" Would you consume the entire city, and make of its ruins a
horrible monument to your memory?

Do not say, "We have not done this; it is the people who are working out
their own revenge, and we stand for nothing, we are as gentle as lambs.
Ranvier would not hurt a fly." Away with all this pretence; were you not
on the balcony of the Hotel de Ville with your blood-red scarfs,
uttering your commands? The populace, deceived and blinded, have but
obeyed you. Do not all the circumstances leading to this stupendous
catastrophe, reveal an elaborate and digested plan, determined long
beforehand? Did we not read this notice, daily, in your official
journal: "All those who have petroleum are requested imm