But let us return to the year 1770 and the fête on the Place Louis XV. All was going well, when suddenly a gust of wind blew down among the crowd some rockets only partially exploded. Fireworks, like so many inventions of Italian origin, were still, to the mass of the French public, a comparative novelty; and this, together with the positive inconvenience and even danger of a fall of blazing missiles in the midst of thousands of excited and closely-packed spectators, was quite enough to account for the terrible confusion, resulting in many hundreds of fatal accidents, which now ensued. There was, in the first place, a general rush towards the Rue Royale, far too narrow to receive such an invasion; and in the crush numbers of women fainted, fell, and were trampled to death. To make matters worse the stream of persons pressing into the Rue Royale was met by a counter-stream, advancing, in ignorance of what had taken place, to the Place de la Concorde. Even these, who were not in imminent peril, were now affected by a panic which soon became universal. In the midst of shrieks and groans some desperate men drew their swords and endeavoured to cut for themselves a passage through the dense mass by which they were surrounded. "I know many persons," says Mercier, in his "Tableau de Paris," "who thirty months after these frightful scenes still bore the marks of objects which had been crushed into them. Some lingered on for ten years and then died. I may say without exaggeration that in the general panic and crush more than twelve hundred unfortunate persons lost their lives. One entire family disappeared; and there was scarcely a household which had not to lament the death of a relative or friend." On the other hand the official returns put down the deaths at 133, already an immense number. Seven years later, in 1777, the Place Louis XV. was the scene of a further mishap. Certain strolling players, jugglers, and other mountebanks had established in the open space an annual fair known as the Fair of St. Ovid, which became such a nuisance to the aristocratic residents in the neighbourhood that a petition was presented to the Government for its suppression; when suddenly one evening the booths and theatres took fire. The conflagration became general, and the Fair of St. Ovid perished in the flames.