ed, 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
_Petroleuse_.[109] One of these _petroleuses_, 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.

[Illustration: PALACE OF THE LUXEMBOURG (GARDEN FRONT).[108]

Used as a Federal Ambulance Hospital.]

[Illustration: LES PETROLEURS]

[Illustration: PETROLEUSES]

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 108: 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.]

[Footnote 109: 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 numbe