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By Root 2108 0

and let fire purify the world! Then he was amazed at what he suddenly saw – five or six men had rushed out of the Palace with a great lout at their head whom he recognized as Chouteau, his old comrade in the squad in the 106th. He had already seen him once since 18 March and found him much up-graded, his képi covered all over with gold braid, and attached to the staff of some general who had kept clear of the fighting. He recalled a story somebody had told about Chouteau being installed in the Palace of the Legion of Honour and living there with a mistress on one continual binge, sprawling on great sumptuous beds with his boots on and breaking the mirrors with pistol shots just for a lark. It was even alleged that his mistress, on the pretext of going shopping in the market, went off every morning in a state coach taking bundles of stolen linen, clocks and even furniture. Now, seeing him running along with his men, still holding a can of paraffin oil, Maurice suddenly felt uneasy and a dreadful doubt came over him and made his whole faith waver. Could this terrible work of destruction be an evil thing, since it was being done by a man like that?

Still more hours went by and he was only fighting now with sickness in his heart, finding nothing left intact within him but a sullen wish for death. If he had been mistaken, then at least he could redeem the error with his blood! The barricade across the rue de Lille at the junction with the rue du Bac was very strongly built of sandbags and barrels full of earth with a deep trench in front. He was defending it with barely a dozen Federals, all lying almost flat and picking off any soldier who showed himself. Until nightfall he stayed there and used up his ammunition in obstinate, despairing silence. He watched the clouds of smoke from the Palace of the Legion of Honour getting denser as the wind blew them down into the middle of the road, but so far no flames could be seen in the failing light. Another fire had broken out in a mansion nearby. Suddenly a comrade came and told him that the soldiers, not wanting to risk a frontal attack on the barricades, were making their way through gardens and houses, battering holes through the walls with picks. This was the end, they might emerge here at any moment. And indeed a shot had been fired down on them from a window. He caught sight of Chouteau and his gang rushing madly into the corner houses on each side with their paraffin and torches. Half an hour later, when the sky was quite black, the whole crossroad was ablaze while he, still lying behind the barrels and sandbags, could take advantage of the brilliant light and shoot down soldiers who unwisely ventured out of doorways into the open roadway.

How much longer did Maurice stay there shooting? He had no sense of time or place. It might be nine, perhaps ten. The vile job he was doing now made him feel sick, like some disgusting wine coming back when you are drunk. The houses burning round him were beginning to encircle him with intolerable heat and choking hot air. The crossing, with the piles of paving stones enclosing it, had become a fortress defended by fires with sparks raining down. Were not these their orders? Set fire to districts as the barricades were abandoned, stop the troops with an all-destroying line of furnaces, burn Paris as they surrendered it. Already he had the impression that the houses in the rue du Bac were not the only ones burning. Behind his back he could see the sky lit up by an immense red glow and hear a distant roaring as though the whole city were catching fire. To his right along the Seine other huge fires must be breaking out. Chouteau had long since disappeared, dodging the bullets. Even the most fanatical of his comrades were sloping off one by one, terrified by the thought of being taken in the rear at any moment. In the end he was left alone, lying between two sandbags with only one thought, keep on firing, when the soldiers who had made their way through courtyards and gardens came from a house in the rue du Bac to take him in the rear.

In the