A Girl of the Commune, G. A. Henty [great novels to read txt] 📗

to the Place de la Concorde, a shell must have fallen there. I fancy it must be within the barricades, but none of the batteries on either side[Pg 327] would have been likely to send a shell there at night, as it is so close to the line of division that the missile would be as likely to strike friend as foe."

Higher and higher mounted the flames, spreading as they went till a huge mass of fire lighted up all that part of Paris.

"It must be a great public building of some sort," Cuthbert said.

"See, another building is on fire a short distance away from it; look, Cuthbert, look is that the reflection of the flames in the windows of the Tuileries or is it on fire?

"It is fire," Cuthbert exclaimed after a minute's pause; "see the flames have burst through that window on the first floor. Good heavens, the Communists are carrying out their threat to lay Paris in ashes before they yield."

In five minutes all doubt was at an end, the flames were pouring out from every window on the first floor of the Palais, and it was evident the fire must have been lighted in a dozen places simultaneously.

By this time the Trocadero was thronged with spectators attracted by the light in the sky, and by the report that one of the public buildings was on fire; exclamations of fury and grief, and execrations upon the Communists rose everywhere, when it was seen that the Tuileries were in flames. From points at considerable distances from each other fresh outbreaks of fire took place. Most of those standing round were able to locate them, and it was declared that the Palace of the Court of Accounts, the Ministries of War and Finance, the palaces of the Legion of Honor and of the Council of State, the Prefecture of Police the Palace de Justice, the Hôtel de Ville and the Palais Royale were all on fire. As the night went on the scene became more and more terrible. Paris was blazing in at least twenty places, and most of the conflagrations were upon an enormous scale. The scene was too fascinating and terrible to be abandoned, and it was not until the morning began to break that the spectators on the Trocadero returned to their homes.

[Pg 328]

CHAPTER XXV.

Armed with his pass Cuthbert started for the city at ten o'clock next morning. A dense pall of smoke hung over Paris. On the south side of the river the conflict was still raging, as it was also on the north and east, but the insurgents' shells were no longer bursting up the Champs Elysées and the firing had ceased at the Place de la Concorde. It was evident that the insurgents, after performing their work of destruction, had evacuated their position there. On reaching the bottom of the Champs Elysées he found that a breach had been made in the barricade and that a considerable number of troops were bivouacked in the Place de la Concorde itself.

The fire-engines from Versailles, St. Denis, and other places round were already at work, but their efforts seemed futile indeed in face of the tremendous bodies of fire with which they had to cope. Just as Cuthbert, after passing through the breach in the barricade, on the presentation of his pass to the sentries, arrived at the end of the Rue Rivoli, a mounted officer dashed up to the two engines at work opposite the building that had first been fired, and said—

"You can do no good here. Take your engines to the courtyard of the Tuileries and aid the troops in preventing the fire from spreading to the Louvre. That is the only place where there is any hope of doing good. Now, monsieur," he said to Cuthbert, "You must fall in and aid the Pompiers. The orders are that all able-bodied men are to help in extinguishing the fire."

Cuthbert was glad to be of use, and joining the firemen ran along with the engines down the Rue Rivoli and turned in with them into the courtyard of the palace. The western end, containing the State apartments, was a mass of fire from end to end, and the flames were creeping along both wings towards the Louvre. In the palace itself a battalion of infantry were at work.[Pg 329] Some were throwing furniture, pictures and curtains through the window into the courtyard; others were hacking off doors and tearing up floors, while strong parties were engaged on the roofs in stripping off the slates and tearing down the beams and linings.

Other engines presently arrived, for telegrams had been sent off soon after the fires broke out to all the principal towns of France, and even to London, asking for engines and men to work them, and those from Amiens, Lille, and Rouen had already reached Paris by train.

After working for three hours Cuthbert showed his pass to the officer and was permitted to pass on, a large number of citizens being by this time available for the work, having been fetched from all the suburbs occupied by the troops. Before going very much farther Cuthbert was stopped by a line of sentries across the street.

"You cannot pass here," the officer in charge said, as Cuthbert produced his permit, "the island is still in the hands of the Communists, and the fire from their barricade across the bridge sweeps the street twenty yards farther on, and it would be certain death to show yourself there; besides, they are still in force beyond the Hôtel de Ville. You can, of course, work round by the left, but I should strongly advise you to go no farther. There is desperate fighting going on in the Place de la Bastille. The insurgent batteries are shelling the Boulevards hotly, and, worst of all, you are liable to be shot from the upper windows and cellars. There are scores of those scoundrels still in the houses; there has been no time to unearth them yet, and a good many men have been killed by their fire."

"Thank you, sir. I will take your advice," Cuthbert said.

He found, indeed, that there was no seeing anything that was going on in the way of fighting without running great risks, and he accordingly made his way back to the Trocadero. Here he could see that a number of fires had broken out at various points since morning, even in the part of the town occupied by the troops; and though some of these might be caused by the Communists' shell it was more probable that they were the work of the incendiary. He had, indeed, heard from some of the citizens[Pg 330] to whom he had spoken while at work at the pumps, that orders had been issued that all gratings and windows giving light to cellars, should be closed by wet sacks being piled against them, and should then be covered thickly with earth, as several women had been caught in the act of pouring petroleum into the cellars and then dropping lighted matches down upon it.

These wretches had been shot instantly, but the fresh fires continually springing up showed that the work was still going on.

It was strangely silent in the streets. With the exception of the sentries at every corner there were few persons indeed abroad. Many were looking from the windows, but few, indeed, ventured out. They knew not what orders had been given to the sentries and feared arrest were they to stir beyond their doors. Moreover, the occasional crash of a shell from the insurgent batteries, the whistling of bullets, and the frequent discharge of musket shots still kept up by groups of desperate Communists who had taken refuge in the houses, was sufficient alone to deter them from making any attempt to learn what was going on. But in the absence of footfalls in the street and of the sound of vehicles, the distant noises were strangely audible. The rustle of the flames at the Hôtel de Ville and the great fires across the river, the crash of the falling roofs and walls, the incessant rattle of distant musketry, and the boom of cannon, formed a weird contrast to the silence that prevailed in the quarter. Cuthbert felt that he breathed more freely when he issued out again into the Champs Elysées.

The next day he did not go down. The advance continued, but progress was slow. On the following morning Paris was horrified by the news published in the papers at Versailles that statements of prisoners left no doubt that the Archbishop of Paris and many other priests, in all a hundred persons, had been massacred in cold blood, the methods of the first revolution being closely followed, and the prisoners made to walk out one by one from the gate of the prison, and being shot down as they issued out. Another statement of a scarcely less appalling nature was that the female fiends of the Commune not only[Pg 331] continued their work of destruction by fire, but were poisoning the troops. Several instances of this occurred. In one case ten men were poisoned by one of these furies, who came out as they passed, and expressing joy at the defeat of the Commune, offered them wine. They drank it unsuspectingly, and within an hour were all dead. Orders, were consequently issued that no soldier should on any account accept drink or food of any kind offered them by women.

"This horrible massacre of the Archbishop and the other prisoners is next door to madness," Cuthbert said, as he read the account at breakfast. "The Communists could have no personal feeling of hostility against their victims, indeed, the Archbishop was, I know, most popular. Upon the other hand it seals the fate of thousands. The fury excited by such a deed will be so great that the troops will refuse to give quarter and the prisoners taken will have to suffer to the utmost for the crime committed by perhaps a handful of desperate wretches. The omnibuses began to run yesterday from Sèvres, and I propose, Mary, that we go over to Versailles to-day and get out of sound of the firing. They say there are fully 20,000 prisoners there."

"I don't want to see the prisoners," Mary said, with a shudder. "I should like to go to Versailles, but let us keep away from horrors."

And so for a day they left the sound of battle behind, wandered together through the Park at Versailles, and carefully abstained from all allusion to the public events of the past six months. The next day Cuthbert returned to Paris and made his way down to the Place de la Bastille, where, for the sum of half a Napoleon, he obtained permission to ascend to the upper window of a house. The scene here was terrible. On the side on which he was standing a great drapery establishment, known as the Bon Marché, embracing a dozen houses, was in flames. In the square itself three batteries of artillery belonging to Ladmirault's Division, were sending their shell up the various streets debouching on the place.

Most of the houses on the opposite side were in flames. The[Pg 332] insurgent batteries on the Buttes de Chaumont were replying to the guns of the troops. The infantry were already pressing their way upwards. Some of the barricades were so desperately defended that the method by which alone the troops on the south side had been able to capture these defences, was adopted; the troops taking possession of the houses and breaking their way with crow-bar and pick-axe through the party wall, and so, step by step, making their way along under cover until they approached the barricades, which they were then able to make untenable by their musketry fire from the windows. Cuthbert remained here for an hour or two, and then making a detour came out on the Boulevards higher up.

The Theatre of Porte St. Martin was in flames, as were many other buildings. A large number of troops with piled arms occupied the centre of the street, taking their turn to rest before they relieved their comrades in the work of assault. Presently he saw down a side street a party of soldiers with some prisoners. He turned down to see what was going on. The officer in command of the party came up to him.

"Monsieur has doubtless a pass," he said, politely.

Cuthbert produced it.

"Ah, you are English, monsieur. It is well for you that your country does not breed such wretches as these. Every one of them has been caught in the course of the last hour in the act of setting houses alight. They are now to be shot."

"It is an unpleasant duty, monsieur," Cuthbert said.

"It would be