, with loud
bursts of merriment. M. de Broglie looked at them and said to M.
Piscatory, "It is a strange spectacle to see the porringers of the
Janissaries vanished from Constantinople reappearing at Paris!"
Almost at the same moment a staff officer informed the Representatives on
behalf of General Forey that the apartments assigned to them were ready,
and requested them to follow him. They were taken into the eastern
building, which is the wing of the barracks farthest from the Palace of
the Council of State; they were conducted to the third floor. They
expected chambers and beds. They found long rooms, vast garrets with
filthy walls and low ceilings, furnished with wooden tables and benches.
These were the "apartments." These garrets, which adjoin each other, all
open on the same corridor, a narrow passage, which runs the length of the
main building. In one of these rooms they saw, thrown into a corner,
side-drums, a big drum, and various instruments of military music. The
Representatives scattered themselves about in these rooms. M. de
Tocqueville, who was ill, threw his overcoat on the floor in the recess
of a window, and lay down. He remained thus stretched upon the ground for
several hours.
These rooms were warmed very badly by cast-iron stoves, shaped like
hives. A Representative wishing to poke the fire, upset one, and nearly
set fire to the wooden flooring.
The last of these rooms looked out on the quay. Antony Thouret opened a
window and leaned out. Several Representatives joined him. The soldiers
who were bivouacking below on the pavement, caught sight of them and
began to shout, "Ah! there they are, those rascals at 'twenty-five francs
a day,' who wish to cut down our pay!" In fact, on the preceding evening,
the police had spread this calumny through the barracks that a
proposition had been placed on the Tribune to lessen the pay of the
troops. They had even gone so far as to name the author of this
proposition. Antony Thouret attempted to undeceive the soldiers. An
officer cried out to him, "It is one of your party who made the proposal.
It is Lamennais!"
In about an hour and a half there were ushered into these rooms MM.
Vallette, Bixio, and Victor Lefranc, who had come to join their
colleagues and constitute themselves prisoners.
Night came. They were hungry. Several had not eaten since the morning. M.
Howyn de Tranchere, a man of considerable kindness and devotion, who had
acted as porter at t
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