mn fell at about 10
minutes to 6. It broke up in the air as it fell. The concussion was
nothing like what had been expected. No glass was broken or injury done
to the Square, excepting that the Column forced itself into the ground.
The excitement was intense. The crowd rushed with loud cheers to
scramble for fragments, while speeches were made by members of the
Commune, mounted on fallen masses, and red flags were hoisted on the
pedestal. Immense crowds assembled in the streets outside, making it
almost impossible to leave the Place Vendome. It was forbidden to take
away any fragments, and people were searched before leaving the Square.

MAY THE 16th.

Two hundred National Guards entered the Grand Hotel last night. After
having searched every room, under the pretence of looking for arms,
they retired with a good deal of plunder.

This is on that subject a letter forwarded by Mister van Henbeck to the
_Figaro Journal_.

It has been spoken in different ways of the frequent searches made in
the Grand Hotel, since the occupation by the admiral Saisset and his
Staff, which had rendered the Hotel suspected by the "Commune" and the
"Comite Central."

The last visit of these _Gentlemen_, has been marked by many strange
proceedings:

In the night of may 15th a band of about 300 armed men, pseudo-sailors
of the "Commune" and Belgian volunteers of both sex, rushed into the
Hotel. During five hours these mad men, several of them being
intoxicated, had to make in every part of the Hotel fantastic searches,
they went breaking the doors and menacing the administrator, the clerks
and servants.

They had no mandamus to do that, but the pretext was the arrestation of
a battalion of "Gendarmes" and the discovery of a subterranean vault
leading to Versailles.

The search for "Gendarmes" was not long to make, but the one for the
vault was stopped only when they had found the wine cellar. The door was
knocked out:

The great attention they paid to those investigations can be evaluated
by a consummation of 1764 francs of wine.

That operation began at 4 a.m. and was out at 6.

The whistles of those supposed sailors and the trumpets of the "Federes"
ordered the end of that small festival. The cellar was left a-side, and
the servants of the Hotel were obliged to bring up in the court-yard
those of the band who could not walk any more; at last, the troop went
out carrying away a good supply of provisions as wine, cigars, watches