Page:The Romance of Isabel, Lady Burton.djvu/152

122 came to dinner, and took the room next to me. He serenades me on the violin at 6 a.m. and 11 p.m. and at 7 a.m. He sent me a bouquet and a basket of fruit, and a letter of about six pages long to tell me that the Tsar is a great man, that he (the general) has bled for his country, and that if I will marry him—"Que je serai dans ses bras" (what a temptation!) "et qu'il me fera la déesse du pays." I refused him of course.

On June 10, when we were in bed at one o'clock in the morning, all the steamers set up a peal. I, who was lying awake, rushed to the window, and then called up the others. We looked out, and saw that apparently the back of our hotel and the whole Quartier des Bergues was in flames. We gave the alarm in the house, ran down the corridors to arouse everybody, and then to our rooms to put on what we could, collect a few treasures and our animals. I took the bullfinch (Toby) and Richard's picture, the Pigotts took each a dog, and down we cut. By this time thousands of people were running to the rescue, every bell in the town was ringing, the whole fire brigade turned out, and they even telegraphed to the borders of France to send down reinforcements. Dozens of engines were at work, and we soon learnt that our hotel was not on fire, but that the fire was so extensive they could scarcely distinguish what was on fire and what was not. In a street at the back of us nine houses were burning, a café, and an entrepôt of inflammables; and the pompiers said that if we had a north-east wind instead of a south-west one, nothing could have saved our whole quartier from destruction. Every soul in