barricades of the quays are still intact, it will be another hour yet before they are taken. The firemen are there furiously at work, but their efforts are insufficient! It would take tons of ammonia to slake the fury of the petroleum which flows like hot lava upon the place from the Hôtel de Ville, and the horrible reflection reddens the waters of the Seine, so that the current of the river seems to flow with blood, which stains the stones as it dashes against the arches of the bridge!” These scenes are being pictured to me as I gaze upon the terrible conflagration, and all that is told me I seem to see. An irresistible longing to be near seizes me. I am under the power of an invincible attraction. I lean forward, my arms outstretched; I run a great risk of falling, but what matters? The sight of these almost sublime horrors has burnt itself into my very brain! XCVII. She walks with a rapid step, near the shadow of the wall; she is poorly dressed; her age is between forty and fifty; her forehead is bound with a red checkered handkerchief, from which hang meshes of uncombed hair. The face is red and the eyes blurred, and she moves with her look bent down on the ground. Her right hand is in her pocket, or in the bosom of her half-unbuttoned dress; in the other hand she holds one of the high, narrow tin cans in which milk is carried in Paris, but which now, in the hands of this woman, contains the dreadful petroleum liquid. As she passes a _poste_ of regulars, she smiles and nods; when they speak to her she answers, “My good Monsieur!” If the street is deserted she stops, consults a bit of dirty paper that she holds in her hand, pauses a moment before the grated opening to a cellar, then continues her way, steadily, without haste. An hour afterwards, a house is on fire in the street she has passed. Who is this woman? Paris calls her a _Pétroleuse_.[108] One of these _pétroleuses_, who was caught in the act in the Rue Truffault, discharged the six barrels of a revolver and killed two men before being passed over to execution. Another was seen falling in a doorway of a house in the Rue de Boulogne, pierced with balls—but this one was a young girl; a bottle filled with petroleum fell from her hand as she dropped. Sometimes one of these wretched women, might be seen leading by the hand a little boy or girl; and the child probably carrying a bottle of the incendiary liquid in his pocket with his top and marbles. [Illustration: Palace of the Luxembourg (garden Front). Used as a Federal Ambulance Hospital.[109]] [Illustration: Les Pétroleurs Les Pétroleuses] NOTES: