Page:The Rise and Fall on the Paris Commune in 1871.djvu/430

 the time of the entrance of the Government troops, ordered the walls of the building to be covered with petroleum. The concierge Charlet, wishing to oppose this criminal act, was immediately imprisoned.

That same evening Ferré gave a grand banquet to twenty-eight of his friends and accomplices. Their orgies lasted until the following morning, when they fired the building at eleven different points, and immediately took their departure.

At the Conciergerie, meanwhile, the prisoners had been set at liberty. At eleven on the morning of the 24th, Raoul Rigault made his appearance in the prison, and gave the order for their liberation, and they were forthwith released, one hundred and fifty in number.

Hardly had they left the prison when they found themselves everywhere surrounded by barricades, which they were ordered by the Federals to defend under pain of death. They all refused emphatically to make use of the arms presented to them against the troops. A young girl of fifteen, wearing a red sash across her shoulders, was particularly violent in calling upon the prisoners to defend the barricades.

The prisoners then took to flight amidst a rain of bullets sent against them by the Federals, and, sooner than draw upon the regular army, they took refuge in the Prefecture, in the midst of a court which the fire had transformed into a veritable furnace.

There they remained until five o'clock, when they were rescued by Lieutenant Berger, at the head of a detachment of the 79th of the line.

Among the prisoners who found themselves in this terrible position were the Prince Galitzin and M. Andréoli, director of the Observateur.