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 Trévise 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 Ministère 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-Honoré.]
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, the
musketry and the cannonading commences afresh, it is a hell, with death
for its girdle! In front of me I see the corner of a building lighted
up by the fire, on which little spirals of smoke are reflected from the
distant conflagration. I rush home, I want to hide myself, to sleep, to
forget. When I am in my room, I see through the white curtains of the
window a bright light. I tremble and rush to the window! It is the gilt
letters of a signboard, on the opposite side of the way, that are
darting forth brilliant flashes, borrowed from the distant flames.
[Illustration: A Bay of the Tuileries—from The Place Du Carrousel. A
warm corner approching the Louvre]
[Illustration: Millière[106]]