There were strange episodes during this terrible evening. At half-past
eight, M. Rouville, a Protestant minister, was at home in a house he
owns on the Rue de Lille. He heard an alarm, the cry, "Everything is
burning! Escape!" Then he went down, saw the street in flames, and the
poor people weeping as they escaped. Just as he was returning to
rescue a few valuables, some federates rushed into the court, crying,
"Hurry! They are setting the place on fire!" He took some money and
the manuscript of the sermons he had preached. Mechanically he seized
his hat and cane. Then, throwing a last look around the apartment
where he had long lived, invoking the memory of the great Biblical
destructions familiar to him in Holy Writ, weak and trembling with
emotion, he descended the staircase from his home.
There was indescribable tumult in the street, dominated by the cry of
women; a shrill wordless involuntary cry of terror, vibrating above
the uproar like a desperate appeal to which no supernatural power
replied. Pastor Rouville stopped. The house next his own was in
flames. They were setting fire to the one opposite. The houses between
the Rue de Beaune and the Rue du Bac, red from cellar to garret, were
vomiting flame from all the broken windows.
The pastor's family were not at Paris. He was alone with a faithful
maid, who did not leave him for a moment. This doubtless determined
his resolution, and gave him courage to brave all to save his house.
If he had felt his wife and daughter near, he would have thought only
of their safety, and would have hastened to get them away from the
place, where, he said, "One could die of horror."
Pastor Rouville is a small man, whose great activity keeps him young
and remarkably energetic. He belongs to the strong race of Southern
Protestants, which has resisted everything to guard its faith. I
should not be surprised if he has had some nimble Cevennole, companion
of Jean Cavalier, among his ancestors. Chaplain in the prisons of the
Seine, accustomed to sound doubtful spirits, to seek in vicious hearts
some intact fibres which could re-attach them to virtue; fervent in
faith, eloquent, with a high voice which could rise above the tumult,
knowing by experience that there is no obscurity so profound that
light cannot be made to penetrate it,--he had remained on duty at his
post during the Commune; for the prisoners had more need of spiritual
aid, now that the regular administration no longer watched over them.
He had been indignant at the incarceration of Catholic priests, and
had signed the fine protest demanding the liberty of the archbishop,
which the ministers had carried to the Hotel de Ville.
Alone in the presence of the great disaster which threatened him, he
commended his spirit to God, remembering that the little stone of
David had killed the giant Philistine, and he decided to fight for his
home. He encamped energetically before the door, to forbid access; and
using the weapons bestowed upon him by Providence and study, he spoke.
The federates stopped before this man, whose simplicity rendered him
heroic. One may guess what he said to them:--
"Why strike the innocent and tender, as if they were execrable? Why be
enraged with a Protestant, a minister, whose religion, founded on the
dogma of free examination, is naturally allied to republican ideas?
The faith he teaches is that promulgated by Christ: Christ said to
Peter, 'Sheathe thy sword;' he said to men,'Love one another!' No, the
people of Paris, this people whose sufferings have been shared, whose
unfortunates have been succored during the siege; this people, so good
when not led astray by the wicked; this people will not burn the house
of a poor minister, whose whole life has been passed in the exercise
of charity."
The pastor must have been eloquent and have spoken with profound
conviction, for the federates who were listening to him began to weep,
then seized and embraced him. Meantime the tenants of the shops in his
house had lowered the iron curtains, which at least was an obstacle
against the first throwing of petroleum. This lasted an hour. The
federates, evidently softened and touched by the pastor's despair,
remained near him and had pity upon him. An old sergeant of the
National Guard stayed beside him, as if to bring him help in case of
need, and to maintain a little order among his subordinates. Some hope
revived in M. Rouville's heart, and he was saying to himself that
perhaps his house would be spared, when some young men, wearing the
braided caps of officers, arrived as if to inspect the fires. Seeing
one house intact, emerging like a little island from an ocean of
flames, they exclaimed. The pastor sprang forward and wanted to argue
with them. It was trouble wasted. One of these young scamps said to
him, "You are an old reactionist: you bore us with your talking. If
you don't like it, we will pin you to the wall." Then, turning toward
the federates and pointing to the houses on the Rue de Lille, he
cried, "All that belongs to the people. The people have the right to
burn every thing."
This had perhaps decided the fate of the pastor's house, when the
sergeant of federates interfered, and addressing the officer said to
him, "I have received orders to stop the fire just here." "Show me
your order," answered the officer. The sergeant replied, "It is a
verbal order." Then there was a lively quarrel between the two men.
The sergeant was firm. The officer insisted, and according to the
custom of the moment, threatened to have the rebel shot.
The situation was becoming grave, when an incident resolved it. A
mounted officer galloped up and ordered all the federates to retreat,
because they were about to be surrounded by the troops from
Versailles.
Nearly all the National Guards hurried away. The sergeant who had
remained near the pastor said, "Get away, scurry, father! You will get
yourself killed, and that will not save your camp."
The other officers passed, commanded everything to be burned, and when
the sergeant resisted, compelled him to leave. For half an hour the
unhappy pastor remained alone, holding back the incendiaries, passing
from supplications to threats, and gaining time by every possible
artifice. The sergeant returned with tearful eyes, and showed the
dismayed pastor a written order to burn the house, sent by his chiefs.
Not yet discouraged, the pastor roused the compassion of the old
sergeant, and so moved him that the rebel cried, "Ah, well! so much
the worse! I'll disobey. No, I won't let your house be burned. They'll
shoot me. It's all the same. I deserve to be." Then raising his hand
toward the sky, where the stars shone like sparks through the veil of
wind-driven smoke, he cried "O my father, I believe in God! Fear
nothing; I will stay here. They shan't touch your house. I shall know
how to keep off plunderers!"
O strange deceiving people; ready for all crimes, ready for all good
actions, according to the voice which speaks to thee and the emotion
which carries thee away! This sergeant was indeed thy likeness, and
one need not despair of thee, although thou dishearten those who love
thee best!
The brandy at the wine merchants'; the ether at the druggists'; the
powder and shot forgotten in stations, or secreted in cellars, burst
with terrible explosions and scattered flaming coals. The pastor
looked at his house, still miraculously intact. He gave it a last
look, and departed sobbing. It was eleven o'clock. For three hours in
the midst of this furnace he had resisted the incendiaries. His
strength was exhausted. The faithful servant, who went back again and
again to rescue one thing more from the burning, dragged him away. In
the Rue des Saints-Peres they plunged into darkness, all the deeper
for the brazier of sparkling lights behind them. They groped their way
over the barricades through a shower of bullets. More than once they
fell down. Finally, safe and sound despite the dangers braved, they
reached the Rue de Seine, near the Rue de Bucy, where they found
refuge in a lodging-house.
Next day Pastor Rouville ran towards the Rue de Lille. His house was
standing intact. The old sergeant had kept his word. What became of
this brave man, who at the risk of his life saved the property of a
man whose speech had touched him? Perhaps he perished. Perhaps he
received his due reward. Perhaps he drags out a wretched life in some
workshop of a penitentiary. I know not his fate, nor even his name.