Page:The Rise and Fall on the Paris Commune in 1871.djvu/419

 away. Throughout the whole quarter, all the windows were broken into thousands of pieces.

This secondary injury was happily the only one sustained by the Palace of the Luxembourg, so near the scene of the explosion.

Clouds of dust obscured the light of the sun; the inhabitants everywhere rushed out into the courts and streets, fearing every moment to be crushed beneath their falling houses; remains of furniture, of glass, of timber, of marble, were thrown far and wide, covering the ground in every direction. While the terror was at its height, the battle recommenced; and it became all the more difficult to escape disaster, as, fleeing from the rain of falling fragments, the unhappy inhabitants were often reached by the balls of the combatants. It was during this same day of the 24th that Raoul Rigault, Procurator of the Commune, was shot.

He came at about three in the afternoon, to give instructions regarding the defence to the Federals of the 5th Arrondissement. He then went to the Rue Gay-Lussac, where he had hired a hotel under the name of Varcla, which hotel was inhabited by an actress of one of the smaller Parisian theatres.

As he placed his hand upon the door-bell, the soldiers of the line made their appearance by the Rue des Feuillantines. At the sight of Raoul Rigault, who wore the uniform of a chief, they fired without reaching him.

The door opened at the same instant, and Rigault entered, closely followed by the soldiers. They first seized upon the proprietor of the house, who was in shirt-sleeves, taking him for the man they sought, on account of his black beard, which resembled that worn by Rigault. A surgeon who inhabited the house hastened to inform them that they had seized a peaceful man, entirely stranger to all political quarrels.