Page:The Rise and Fall on the Paris Commune in 1871.djvu/348

 Late in the afternoon the defences of the insurgents were carried, and the terrace of the Tuileries succumbed, at the same time leaving the Place de la Concorde and the Place de la Madeleine in the possession of the troops.

The insurgents, in retreating, spread fire and desolation in their path. In the Rue Royale, the houses were forcibly entered by the Communists, petroleum was flung on all the furniture and woodwork, and in some cases thrown on the upper stories by means of fire-engines, so that in a short time the whole range of buildings from the Faubourg St. Honoré to the church (on the left, looking toward the Madeleine), was a mass of ruins. In the Faubourg, several houses were totally destroyed, and others greatly injured, while on the opposite side of the Rue Royale, on the corner of the Rue St Honoré, two or three houses were also made a prey to the flames.

Any attempt to extinguish the conflagration was punished by the insurgents with instant death, and many persons who had taken refuge in their cellars, to escape the dangers of shot and shell, were smothered by the smoke.

In No. 1 Faubourg St Honoré, seven persons thus became the victims of death, and their bodies were afterwards taken from beneath the ruins. This building was entered early in the morning by several National Guards, who informed the proprietor, M. Aurelly, that they were about to set fire to his house, but that, as he had been always kind to them, they would allow him to escape. He begged leave to inform his servants and some friends who had taken refuge in his cellars, but was told that if he did so he should be burned with them, and he was forced to leave the unhappy victims to their fate.

The story of two of these, man and wife, was very sad. Early in the morning, their son, a lad of eighteen, being wounded by the bursting of a shell, was carried to an am