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Bloodworth cried, according to Pepys's diary. "I am spent: people will not obey me. I have been pulling down houses; but the fire overtakes us faster than we can do it." The King's brother, James, the Duke of York, was placed in command of the firefighting efforts. James, a practical soldier, brought in the army and established a series of command posts around the perimeter of the fire. He mobilized teams of sailors, who were experts in using gunpowder, to blow up entire blocks of houses. This was a radical, highly dangerous strategy, but it was the only way to create firebreaks wide enough to stop the leaping flames. For three days, the battle raged. The heat was so intense that the stone walls of historic buildings began to crack and crumble. The most spectacular casualty was Old St. Paul's Cathedral. The great church, which had stood for centuries, was undergoing renovations at the time and was surrounded by wooden scaffolding. When the fire reached the cathedral, the scaffolding caught like giant matches. Inside, the crypts were packed with books and papers stored there by the stationers of nearby Fleet Street, who believed the thick stone walls would protect their stock. Instead, the cathedral became a giant oven. The heat grew so extreme that the lead roof, covering six acres, began to melt. Eyewitnesses described a terrifying stream of liquid lead running down the streets like water, glowing a bright, angry red. The great stones of the cathedral exploded like grenades, and the magnificent structure collapsed in on itself, a smoking monument to the limits of human architecture. The Hunt for a Scapegoat As London burned, the physical destruction of the city was accompanied by an equally dangerous social conflagration. In the seventeenth century, a disaster of this magnitude could not possibly be accepted as a mere accident. The human mind, particularly one conditioned by years of civil war, plague, and religious conflict, demanded a narrative. There had to be a villain. Almost immediately, rumors began to circulate through the smoke-filled streets. It was whispered that the fire was not the result of a baker's negligence, but a coordinated attack. England was currently at war with both France and the Netherlands, and the population was primed for xenophobic panic. Surely, people argued, this was a popish plot, orchestrated by French Catholics, Dutch agents, or perhaps a coalition of both, designed to destroy the Protestant capital. Mobs of terrified, angry citizens began to roam the outskirts of the city, searching for anyone who looked or sounded foreign. Innocent Frenchmen, Dutchmen, and Walloons were dragged from their horses, beaten, and thrown into prison for their own safety. Anyone carrying a package was suspected of carrying "fireballs" designed to start new blazes. One poor French painter was nearly torn to pieces when a mob decided his tennis balls were actually secret incendiary devices. A foreign blacksmith was assaulted because he was carrying a pair of tongs, which the crowd insisted were used to throw fire into houses. The paranoia was absolute, and it threatened to dissolve what little social order remained. In a desperate bid to restore calm and satisfy the public's demand for justice, the government launched an official investigation into the origins of the fire. They needed a culprit, and they needed one quickly. They found their perfect scapegoat in the form of Robert Hubert, a French watchmaker from Rouen. Hubert was, by all contemporary accounts, a deeply troubled and mentally unstable young man. He had been arrested in Essex while trying to flee the country, and under intense interrogation, he