Town on fire, possibly Liege

This dramatic image of an incipient conflagration features men on the ground setting on fire buildings from which one woman is already screaming from a window. The smoke in this engraving resembles that of the pillars of fire in CAT 34, but here the fiery sign is the work of human hands. The German-language text on the verso of this image includes references to “Franzosen” and “200000 Thaler.” Eberhard Zwink of the German National Library has suggested that the action may be related to the Cathedral Chapter of Liege during the wars between the French and the Austrians over the future of Belgium beginning in 1789.