From Margaux I went in company with my wife and son to Bordeaux, where we stayed for several days, making excursions to various celebrated vineyards in the neighbourhood. On the evening of our arrival, just as we were about retiring for the night, we were suddenly startled by the great bell of St. André sounding the tocsin. Whatever could it mean, we asked each other. Surely the highly conservative southern city, where Napoleon III. had proclaimed that the empire meant peace, could not have revolted and shewn itself unfaithful to the dynasty? While we were thus surmising, all the other church bells commenced booming, and finding that everyone in the hotel was rushing to the side looking on to the grand theatre, we went with the stream, and from the great blaze of light realised that some huge fire was raging, and that it was this and not a revolution which had set all the bells in Bordeaux pealing.

The fire, we were told, was among the shipping in the harbour, and thither I hurried, and saw numerous craft furiously burning, with lighted petroleum floating on the water and igniting the hulls of anchored vessels. The quays were lined with crowds of people, kept in order by shoals of policemen, aided by the military. As one ship after another burst into flames maddening shouts went up on all sides. Apparently only the feeblest efforts were made to cope with the fearful disaster. Distracted firemen squirted little jets of water upon the blazing vessels to no purpose, while burning ships getting loose from their moorings set light to other vessels against which they were driven by the force of the tide.