On May 23 the Versaillais were gaining every moment.  There was a man named Matillion, charged by the Central Committee to do anything or to burn anything to prevent their advance.  That night, when houses that he had set on fire were blazing in the Rue Royale (he had had petroleum pumped upon them by fire-engines), there was a fierce orgy held by the light of the flames before the Church of the Madeleine.  A wild, demon-like dance was led by three women who had done duty all day as petroleuses,—­Florence, Aurore, and Marie.  Marie had been publicly thanked at the Hotel-de-Ville for sending a cannonball through one of the statues before the Chamber of Deputies.

Three battalions of Communist soldiers stationed in the Ministry of Marine, which had been converted into a hospital, took advantage of the fact that the general attention was fixed upon this orgy to quit their post and steal away, leaving the Ministry undefended.  It was eleven at night; Colonel Brunel was sending to the Central Committee for fresh soldiers and fresh orders, when a paper was given him.  He read it, turned pale, and sent for the doctor.  “The Central Committee,” he said, “orders me to blow up this building immediately.”  “But my wounded?” cried the doctor.  There were one hundred and seven wounded soldiers of the Commune in the hospital.  There was no place to which they could be moved, and no means of transportation.  Colonel Brunel sent an orderly to represent the case to the Committee.  All he could obtain was a detail of National Guards to assist in carrying away the wounded, together with a positive order to burn down the building.  As the sick men were being very slowly carried out, a party arrived, commanded by a drunken officer, and carrying buckets of coal-oil and other combustibles, which they scattered about the rooms.  By this time the fires of the Versaillais gleamed through the trees in the Champs Elysees.  The Rue Royale, near at hand, was in flames.  Across the Seine, the Rue de Lille was burning.  The Ministry of Finance and the palace of the Tuileries seemed a sea of flame.  In the Ministry of Marine were two clerks, long attached to that branch of the Government service, who had been requested by Admiral Pothereau, the Minister for Naval Affairs, to remain at their post and endeavor to protect the papers and property.  Their names were Gablin and Le Sage.  M. Le Sage had his wife with him in the building.  These men resolved to save the Ministry, or perish.  While Le Sage, who was expert in gymnastics, set out to see if he could reach the general in command of the Versaillais, Gablin turned all his energies to prevent the impending conflagration.  Putting on an air of haste and terror, he rushed into the room where the soldiers were refreshing themselves, and cried out lustily that the Versaillais were upon them, but that if they followed him, he would save them.  Under pretence of showing them a secret passage, he led them into a chamber and locked the door.  Then he turned