, perhaps, not have seen an authentic statement of this most
horrid circumstance, I shall therefore give a translation of the letter
of Maillard Lescourt, major of artillery, taken from the Journal des
Debats of the 7th April: "I was employed, on the evening before the
attack of Paris, in assembling the horses necessary for the removal of
the artillery, and was assisted in this duty by the officers of the
'Direction Generale.' At nine at night a colonel gallopped up to the
gate of the grating of St Dominique, where I was standing, and asked to
speak to the Directeur d'Artillerie. On my being shewn to him, he
immediately asked me if the powder magazine at Grenelle bad been
evacuated? I replied that it had not, and that there was neither time
nor horses for the purpose. Then, Sir, said he, it must be blown up. I
turned pale, and trembled, not reflecting that there was no occasion to
distress myself for an order which was not written, and with the bearer
of which I was unacquainted. Do you hesitate? said the Colonel.--It
immediately occurred to me, that the same order might be given to
others, if I did not accept of it; I therefore calmly replied to him,
that I should immediately set about it. Become master of this frightful
secret, I entrusted it to no one." At Paris we met with persons of much
respectability, who vouched for the truth of this statement.

There can be no doubt that this order was given by Napoleon, for at this
time the other ruling authorities had left Paris. It is by no means
inconsistent with the character of the man; never, in any instance, has
he been known to value the lives of men, where either ambition or
revenge instigated him. Beauchamp, in his history of the last campaign,
gives the following anecdote;[13] "Sire, (lui disoit un general, en le
felicitant sur la victoire de Montmirail), quel beau jour, si nous ne
voyions autour de nous tant de villes et de pays devastes. Tant mieux,
replique Napoleon, cela me donne des soldats!!"

The second capture of Rheims in that campaign was an object of little
consequence to him, but he now determined it should suffer by fire and
sword. From the heights he looked down on the town, then partly on fire,
and smiling said, [14]"Eh bien, dans une heure les dames de Rheims
auront grand peur." His resentment against the towns that declared for
the Bourbons was beyond all bounds; The following account of the murder
of the unfortunate De Goualt is taken from Beaucham