It is not so well known how the great fire originated in Rome, which Nero and his myrmidons charged upon the Christians. History had no historians for the poor of those days. There is but too much reason, however, to believe that the burning of Rome in Nero’s time was as much the work of the friends of “law and order,” and for a similar purpose, as the June insurrection was notoriously the work of the same description of gentry in Paris. Times and circumstances change, but not human nature; it is always the same, and will ever develop itself in the like way under like circumstances. Nero is said to have fiddled when Rome burned. The friends of “law and order,” the defenders of “society,” were never in brighter ecstacies than when Cavaignac announced the demolition, by shells and cannon, of the houses of the insurgents, and the massacre of their brave defenders. If setting fire to Rome, and reducing three-fourths of it to ashes, could have been made available for the destruction of the Christians, the aristocracy of that day would no more have scrupled at it than did Rostochin the burning of Moscow, Cavaignac the demolitions in Paris, or General Oudinot the bombardment of Rome. Aristocrats have never been aught but robbers since the birth of their order; and all history proves that they invariably become murderers, burners, devastators, and hirers of assassins the moment the people attempt to recover their own. It was so, most likely, in the burning of Rome. To this day, Nero himself is suspected of the deed, though we think it far more likely to have been the work of his aristocracy, with whom he was no favourite, because he made himself too familiar with the common people. But whether the atrocity was Nero’s work, or that of the aristocratic enemies of Christianity, it is certain the unfortunate Christians were made to bear the odium and penalties of it. Without any evidence on the matter, the best and bravest of the Christian party--those publicly known as such--were openly seized and accused of the act. Through these, others were discovered and laid hold of, till the imperial net was full of victims. They were condemned to a variety of cruel deaths, and they perished in the midst of all manner of insults and execrations. Some were sewed up in the skins of wild beasts, and then thrown to hungry dogs, to be torn in pieces and devoured. Some were nailed to crosses, like their Divine Master. Others were burnt alive, in a manner which ought to cause aristocracy and vulgar intolerance to be abhorred till the crack of doom. The victims were first sewed up in pitched clothes or coverings; these were then set on fire, and, being lighted up at night, they served as torches to illuminate Nero’s own gardens, which were given for the purpose.