On the 16th of May, the day of the destruction of the column in the Place Vendôme, a great patriotic concert was given in the palace of the Tuileries, which was thronged; but "by that date, discord and despair were in the Council of the Commune, and its most respectable members had sent in their resignation. Versailles everywhere was gaining ground; the Fort of Vauves was taken, that of Mont Rouge had been dismantled, and breaches were opened in the city walls. The leaders of the insurrection lost their senses, and gave way to every species of madness and folly. The army of Versailles soon entered the city from different points. The fight was desperate, the carnage frightful. Dombrowski, the only general of ability, was killed early in the struggle. Barricades were in almost every street. Prisoners on both sides were shot without mercy. The Communists set fire to the Tuileries, the Hôtel-de-Ville, the Ministry of Finance, the Palace of the Legion of Honor. The rest of the story is all blood and horror. The most pathetic part of it is the murder of the hostages, which took place on the morning of May 24, and which cannot be told in this chapter. The desperate leaders of the Commune had determined that if they must perish, Paris itself should be their funeral pyre. It was General Eudes who organized the band of incendiaries called "pétroleuses" and gave out the petroleum. It was Félix Pyat, it was said, who laid a train of gunpowder to blow up the Invalides, while another member of the Commune served out explosives. On the night of May 24, the Hôtel-de-Ville was in flames. The smoke, at times a deep red, enveloped everything; the air was laden with the nauseous odors of petroleum. The Tuileries, the Palace of the Legion of Honor, the Ministry of War, and the Treasury were flaming like the craters of a great volcano. We have heard much of _pétroleuses_. They appear to have worked among private houses in the more open parts of the city. Here is a picture of one seen by an Englishman:--