On May 4, 1897, members of Parisian high society flocked to the doors of the charity bazaar "de la Charité", the money of which was set aside for orphans and the needy.

The ceremony was attended by more than 1,200 men, women and children, dressed in their elegant clothes, and at 4:20 pm the charity bazaar was turned into a piece of coal after a massive fire broke out in it, and the flames turned to the ashes of 126 victims, most of them women.

The beginning of the Bazaar de la Charité

Beginning in 1885 an annual charity event known as the "Bazaar de la Charité" was organized by the French Catholic aristocracy in Paris, where things were sold for the benefit of the poor and orphans, and the event passed peacefully every year.

The Englishman Henry Blount (son of the banker Edward Blount), financier of railway companies in France, was the first organizer of the charity bazaar.

In 1897 the French aristocrat Baron de Macau organized the event, and the event was expected to last 4 consecutive days.

Macau rented a vacant plot of land on "Jean Goujon" street in the Champs Elysees district in Paris, and erected a temporary building of pine wood 60 meters long and 19 meters wide, and includes 22 booths in which women sell goods and collect money for orphans.

According to The New York Times, the bazaar, which opened on May 3, 1897, achieved a successful trial run, collecting 4,500 francs, which was a large sum at the time.

On the second day of the event, the attendance was high, as estimates ranged between 1,600 and 1,700 visitors, and with the cinema camera turned on - which was lit by the ether lamp because there was no electricity - the operator asked his assistant for more light, and the assistant lit a match that exploded immediately and the tongues spread Flames crossed the ceiling, and the entire structure burned so violently and so fast, that within 10 minutes nothing was left but the dead and dying.

unexpected fire

The scene inside the bazaar was frightening, the fire erupted unexpectedly and the flame spread with great speed, it was as if the entire structure had been ignited in an instant, the stalls were on fire, and panic reigned among the audience.

All those present rushed to the exits, but due to the massive stampede people could not find the exits and the crowd quickly closed the entrances, many people were beaten and trampled, while others choked from the billowing smoke.

According to Geriwalton, some of the women who came out of the fire ran to nearby houses for help, and other lucky women ran out into the street.

In a few minutes, the firefighters came, but the clouds of smoke had covered the entire place and the roof had fallen, and screams had risen from the inside, amid the neighborhood's gathering in front of the bazaar and some public trying to help the victims.

Victims are women

Eventually, after the fire was extinguished, more than 150 people were injured, and 126 people lost their lives, including 120 women.

Most of the women were burned so badly that pieces of clothing or jewelry were used to identify them, even Sophie Charlotte, Duchess of Alençon (sister of the Empress of Austria at the time) was among the victims, and it was difficult to identify her body, so he called her dentist to identify her through her teeth and gold fixtures It was in her mouth.

After the event, various explanations emerged about the fact that the majority of the victims were women. One of the proposed explanations for why this happened was that the women's clothes were generally made of very light fabrics, which were flammable very quickly, and they caught fire first.

The second explanation - according to what came in France-pub - is that the majority of women wore huge and very heavy dresses, and were unable to move quickly enough, and some of them, because of those clothes, were trapped among the rushing crowds and could not go out .

However, the most brutal explanation, which was reported by eyewitnesses - according to the newspapers "New York Times" and "Pariszigzag" French - is that the men of the upper class used their sticks to overcome the women and escape from the flames, so they beat them And he pushed them to cross over their bodies on the way out, so that they crowded over the women and some of them died under the feet of their husbands and male relatives, which made the list of the dead in that tragic event include the names of 120 women and only 6 males, including a 14-year-old child and another Not more than 5 years old.