“FIRE!”

Northland Age, Volume VIII, Issue 27, 23 February 1912, Page 2

“FIRE!”

THE BAZAAR CATASTROPHE IN PARIS. All the sellers were very busy In the great charity bazaar in the building erected on its behalf iu the Rue Jean Goujon, Paris, on the 4th of May, 1897, when suddenly there was an awful hush, then the cry which will make the bravest heart stand still—the cry of "Fire 1” I saw la great fierce tongue of flame shoot upwards and lick the tarred canvas covering the building, and run about the gaudy streamers which hung over the old Parisian street; I heard the warning cry grow louder and more terrible, then listened to the most pitiful and piercing prayers for help. In a single moment the flimsy pleasure-palace had become a glowing furnace.

Amid the awful noises none was more dreadful than that dull, steady roar of the flames, which leapt and ran about like some appalling red monster with a thousand devouring tongues. I rushed back to my house across the road, and from my window, just above the pavement, watched the havoc of the outbreak.

On the wall by the window here was a cage containing Borne little birds. The fierce heat kill’d them almost instantly ; but I was too much horrified and stunned by what was happening at the ha aar to trouble about my pets. It was only later that I recollected them—and then it was too late. How can words describe the horror of that .sudden happening ? I had seen the Rue Jean Goujon full of happy, wealthy people, had heard their laughter and delighted greetings, seen them crowd through the doorway of the bazaar ; and now from that very doorway they were rushing madly and in terror, screaming, struggling, fainting—and all the time the solid red flames were roaring fiercely—leaping out across the street and rising in a red wall to the placid sky. One thing I remember clearly was that dreadful redness and the deadly heat—there was scr-cely any smoke. It was just a fiery furnace—a devouring monster with that pitiless roar of triumph. And it was all so swift 1

Twenty minutes after the first outcry the fire was ended—there was only a mass of smouldering wood and canvas and debris ; hut the place which had been a gay bazaar was the funeral pyre of scores of noble dames and dainty demoiselles and children.

When the fire broke out there was a wild stampede, carriages were hurried oil to safer places, and the police came up and, almost like magic, cleared the street in front of the blazing building ; but I was here, just in-front of the awful sight, in my own room, and here I stayed for some time watching—stayed until I could remain no longer, for I rushed across the street and attempted to re-enter the bazaar. 1 might as well have tried to go uninjured into a furnace. I hurried baek, scorched and almost suffocated, and even here, behind the stonework and the windows, I thought that I should perish. It was all like a hideous nightmare ; it was so numbing to the senses, so incredible, so BUdden, and so stupendous —From “The Narrative of Madame Charont, as told to Walter Wood.”