Going down to the Quai de Passy, I found a dense crowd there. Some one screamed out: “Go back! go back! the fire will soon reach the cartridge-magazine.” The words had scarcely been uttered, when a storm of balls fell like hail amongst us. Each person thought himself wounded, and many took to their heels. It did not enter into my head to run away. From where I was then, the sight was still more terribly beautiful, and the crowd that had withdrawn from the spot soon re-assembled again. Dreadful details were passed from mouth to mouth. Four five-storied houses had fallen; no one dared to think even of the number of the victims. Bodies had been seen to fall from the windows, horribly mutilated; arms and legs had been picked up in different places. Near the powder-magazine is a hospital, which was shaken from foundation to roof: for an instant it had trembled violently as if it were going to fall. The nurses, dressers, and even the sick had rushed from the wards, shrieking in an agony of fear; the frightened horses, too, with blood streaming down their sides, pranced madly among the fugitives, or galloped away as fast as they could from the awful scene. As to the cause of the explosion, opinions varied much. Some said it was owing to the negligence of the overseers or the imprudence of the workwomen; others, that the fire was caused by a shell. A woman rushed up to us, screaming out that she had just seen a man arrested in a shed in the Champ de Mars, who acknowledged having blown up the powder-magazine, by order of the Versailles government. Of course this was inevitable. The Commune would not let such a good opportunity pass for accusing its enemies. A few innocent people will be arrested, tried with more or less form, and shot; when they are so many corpses, the Commune will exclaim, “You see they must have been guilty: they have been shot!” As evening came on I turned home, thinking that the cup was now filled to overflowing, and that the devoted city had had to suffer defeat, civil war, infamy, and death; but that this last disaster seemed almost more than divine justice. Ever and anon I turned my head to gaze again. In the gathering gloom, the flames looked blood-red, as if the Commune had unfurled its sinister banner over that irreparable disaster. NOTES: