This is on that subject a letter forwarded by Mister van Henbeck to the Figaro Journal.
It has been spoken in different ways of the frequent searches made in the Grand Hotel, since the occupation by the admiral Saisset and his Staff, which had rendered the Hotel suspected by the "Commune" and the "Comité Central."
The last visit of these Gentlemen, has been marked by many strange proceedings:
In the night of may 15th a band of about 300 armed men, pseudo-sailors of the "Commune" and Belgian volunteers of both sex, rushed into the Hotel. During five hours these mad men, several of them being intoxicated, had to make in every part of the Hotel fantastic searches, they went breaking the doors and menacing the administrator, the clerks and servants.
They had no mandamus to do that, but the pretext was the arrestation of a battalion of "Gendarmes" and the discovery of a subterranean vault leading to Versailles.
The search for "Gendarmes" was not long to make, but the one for the vault was stopped only when they had found the wine cellar. The door was knocked out:
The great attention they paid to those investigations can be evaluated by a consummation of 1764 francs of wine.
That operation began at 4 a.m. and was out at 6.
The whistles of those supposed sailors and the trumpets of the "Fédérés" ordered the end of that small festival. The cellar was left a-side, and the servants of the Hotel were obliged to bring up in the court-yard those of the band who could not walk any more; at last, the troop went out carrying away a good supply of provisions as wine, cigars, watches, jewels and purses stolen in the servants' rooms, and also clocks and about a hundred table-plates belonging to the Hotel.
They went with empty hands, but the pockets were full. Two of the servants were obliged to go with them, and they said they would come back the next day to arrest many others.