Page:The Rise and Fall on the Paris Commune in 1871.djvu/298

 transported through the streets, many bleeding profusely, principally from cuts received by fragments of glass, almost every window within a considerable radius having been demolished. In many houses the sashes, frames, and doors were blown out, and iron-shutters twisted into the strangest forms. In some places the morsels of glass were lying on the pavement to the depth of more than an inch.

The hospital of Gros-Caillou was seriously injured on its roof, through which a large shot had fallen. The patients rushed out in the greatest alarm, those able to walk hurrying off with the first garments they could lay hold of—many of them with only a dressing-gown on, and with bare feet. They were all sent to the Hotel-des-Invalides, as well as their companions, who had to be removed in vehicles.

Ordinarily about 800 women were employed at the establishment; but fortunately they had left at five instead of seven o'clock, their usual hour.

The population at first believed that the disaster was the work of an incendiary, and the report spread that it had been caused by an agent of the Versailles Government. Numerous persons were arrested as being implicated in the matter. The general idea, however, prevailed that it was either caused by an accident or the fall of a shell. The insurgents wished to convey the idea that it was caused by the Government; and the official organ of the Commune published the following note, throwing on the authorities of Versailles the odium of this terrible explosion:

", 27 Floreal, an. 79.

"The Government of Versailles has just disgraced itself with a fresh crime, the most frightful and the most dastardly of all.

"Its agents set fire to the cartridge manufactory on the Avenue Rapp, and produced a frightful catastrophe.