Pétroleuses

thumb|325px|Pétroleuses arrested in Versailles Pétroleuses were, according to popular rumours at the time, female supporters of the Paris Commune, accused of burning down much of Paris during the last days of the Commune in May 1871. During May, when Paris was being recaptured by loyalist Versaillais troops, rumours circulated that lower-class women were committing arson against private property and public buildings, using bottles full of petroleum or paraffin (similar to modern-day Molotov cocktails) which they threw into cellar windows, in a deliberate act of spite against the government. Many Parisian buildings, including the Hôtel de Ville, the Tuileries Palace, the Palais de Justice and many other government buildings were in fact set afire by the soldiers of the Commune during the last days of the Commune, prompting the press and Parisian public opinion to blame the .

== Background== During the Bloody Week at the end of the Commune, many Paris landmarks were set on fire by the Communards, most notably the Hotel de Ville, the Palais de Justice, the Tuileries Palace, the Palais d'Orsay, and other government buildings, as well as the commercial docks along the Seine and some private homes, including the residence of the writer Prosper Mérimée, who had died before the Commune, but was accused of supporting Napoleon III. Some later accounts blamed the fires on "", or female arsonists. However, the history of the Paris Commune by Maxime Du Camp, written in the 1870s, and more recent research by historians of the Paris Commune, including Robert Tombs and Gay Gullickson, long ago debunked this myth and concluded that there were no incidents of deliberate arson by pétroleuses. The buildings destroyed at the end of the Commune were burned by the soldiers of the Commune, who proudly claimed credit for it afterwards. The Commune soldiers, led by Paul Brunel, one of the original leaders of the Commune, took cans of oil and set fire to the Tuileries Palace, and buildings near the Rue Royale and the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré. Following the example set by Brunel, guardsmen set fire to dozens of other buildings on Rue Saint-Florentin, Rue de Rivoli, Rue de Bac, Rue de Lille, and other streets. Some buildings along the Rue de Rivoli were burned down during street-fighting between Communards and Versaillais troops. The arsonists also targeted the cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris for burning. The furniture had been piled together inside the cathedral to start the fire, but the arson was cancelled when it was realised that the fire would inevitably spread to the neighbouring Hôtel-Dieu hospital, where hundreds of patients were sheltered.