Le grand incendie de Londres, chapitre un

After midnight on the second of September, sixteen sixty-six, fire breaks out at baker Thomas Farriner's house in Pudding Lane, London.

How it begins is uncertain. Farriner later maintains that his ovens were extinguished; his account cannot settle the question.

Farriner and his household escape through an upstairs window. One maid does not get out; her name is not securely known.

Outside, timber houses crowd the narrow lane. After a dry summer, an easterly wind carries flames towards neighbouring roofs.

At about three, household maid Jane Birch wakes her employer, naval administrator Samuel Pepys, with news of a great fire.

Pepys gets up and looks from a window. Beyond the roofs, he sees the fire, but thinks it far enough away.

He returns to bed. His diary preserves something startling: even an observant Londoner cannot yet grasp what the night is becoming.

Near Pudding Lane, neighbours pass leather buckets while parish equipment is brought out. There is no modern fire brigade waiting to arrive.

Flames spread towards warehouses near the Thames, where combustible goods are stored. The river offers escape, but its waterfront also offers fuel.

As daylight grows, people carry possessions into the streets. Carts, bundles and frightened neighbours fill lanes already too narrow for easy movement.

At seven, Pepys rises again. Jane tells him she has heard more than three hundred houses have burned during the night.

This is a report, not a verified count. But the destruction is no longer something Pepys can dismiss from his bedroom.

The streets now demand a closer look. Can London stop the spreading fire? Next chapter follows Pepys towards the king.