Page:The Rise and Fall on the Paris Commune in 1871.djvu/376

 The Boulevard des Capucines presented a similar appearance; but it was at the aspect of the Rue Royale that a cry of horror burst from every lip. Here the fire still smouldered sulkily, notwithstanding all the efforts made to extinguish it, and now and then some blackened wall would totter and fall with a dull thud to the ground. The fire had, in many houses, shown strange caprices. In one, hanging on the inner wall, which alone remained standing, in the fifth story, was a woman's dress and an umbrella, not even scorched by the flames; while on a mantlepiece, high in the air, in another house, stood a pretty little clock, firm on its resting-place, although the surrounding walls had entirely disappeared. The mirror above it also stood intact, covered with strips of paper such as the Parisians had pasted on all their shop windows, thinking to save their being broken by the concussion caused in firing. The poor little mirror remained, but the home was gone.

Several houses which were not burned had their fronts entirely knocked away by shells, and presented very much the appearance of a scene in a theatre when the stage is divided into two compartments, a different representation going on in each.

Of one house, the entresol alone remained, and that stood entirely open, the front wall being knocked away. The furniture was intact; the bed, ornamented with green curtains, trimmed with guipure and caught back by bands of the same; in the centre of the room stood a chair placed as though some one had just risen from it, while over the back a shawl was carelessly thrown. All this was inexpressibly sad to look upon; but horrible as it was, it might have been worse. The city was everywhere mined and ready to be blown up by the demons of the Commune. But a merciful Providence spared the French this crowning disaster, which, coming after a year of such