NEWS OF THE WEEK.
THE better half of the world has this week been saddened and the worse half enraged, by a detestable crime. M. Thiers on 'Monday found his troops within the enceinte, apparently because the National Guards had been withdrawn, and immediately informed the Assembly that "the laws should be rigorously enforced," that "the expiation should be complete." The Corn- -munists were to be treated not as enemies, but as malefactors. These words, or others of the same tenor, previously uttered, reached Paris, and the Red leaders, aware that the troops would carry them out to the full, finding that the Prussians had shut the gate of St. Denis, and believing themselves all marked out for massacre, resolved on a terrible act of vengeance,—to fulfil their old -threat of burning Paris rather than submit. Between Tuesday and Wednesday, while still resisting the advance of the Versaillese troops, they fired the public buildings of Paris, and, as is reported, several houses, and at first it was believed that the city would be 'destroyed. The truth, though not so bad, was bad enough. Paris was saved by the rain and a change of wind, but the Tuileries was .reduced to mhos, the Library of the Louvre burnt, the Ministry of Finances, the Palace of the Legion of Honour, and the buildings on the Quai d'Orsay destroyed ; the Luxemburg was blown up ; the Hotel de Ville destroyed, and the Sainte Chapelle fired, though little injured ; and even the granary at Bercy is said not to have 'escaped. Notre Dame seems not to have been touched, and the Museum of the Louvre was saved ; but the attempt was to burn all, and up to Friday evening the limits of disaster had not been ascertained.
