Page:The Rise and Fall on the Paris Commune in 1871.djvu/377

 utter misery and misfortune, might have proved a finishing blow.

The burning of Paris had been long premeditated by the Commune as a last resource, and every preparation had been made to ensure its success. The incendiaries were regularly enrolled, and were mostly women. These infamous creatures had for mission, to throw petroleum and matches through the gratings of the cellars into the windows, particularly of public buildings; and anywhere, in fact, where a conflagration could be lighted.

They went mostly alone, modestly but not poorly dressed, gliding along the sides of the houses, and looking very much like housekeepers going to market.

Those who were furnished with incendiary matches carried them in their hands, and without either stooping or stopping, threw them quickly into any openings which they passed. Those who carried petroleum, hid the bottle which contained it in the folds of their skirts, and operated in the same manner.

Later, when the suspicions and vigilance of the inhabitants were strongly excited, the petroleum was carried in a milk-can and in this way they were enabled to continue their odious mission for some time undiscovered.

If detected, however, they expected and received no mercy, and were mostly executed on the spot. On the morning of the 24th, thirteen of these pétroleuses, the name given them by the population, who had been discovered in the act, were shot on the Place Vendôme, now occupied by the soldiers.

In the Rue du 4 Septembre, in the short distance comprised between the New Opera and the Bourse, ten pétroleuses were arrested, some of them children between ten and fifteen years of age.

To add to these horrors, many of the water-pipes had been cut, so that a fire, once ignited, was with difficulty