orrespond
two places of combat; the Porte Saint Martin when the middle-class are
revolting, the Bastille when the people are revolting. The eye of the
politician should always be fixed on these two points. There, famous in
contemporary history, are two spots where a small portion of the hot
cinders of Revolution seem ever to smoulder.

When a wind blows from above, these burning cinders are dispersed, and
fill the city with sparks.

This time, as we have already explained, the formidable Faubourg
Antoine slumbered, and, as has been seen, nothing had been able to
awaken it. An entire park of artillery was encamped with lighted
matches around the July Column, that enormous deaf-and-dumb memento of
the Bastille. This lofty revolutionary pillar, this silent witness of
the great deeds of the past, seemed to have forgotten all. Sad to say,
the paving stones which had seen the 14th of July did not rise under
the cannon-wheels of the 2d of December. It was therefore not the
Bastille which began, it was the Porte Saint Martin.

From eight o'clock in the morning the Rue Saint Denis and the Rue Saint
Martin were in an uproar throughout their length; throngs of indignant
passers-by went up and down those thoroughfares. They tore down the
placards of the _coup d'etat_; they posted up our Proclamations; groups
at the corners of all the adjacent streets commented upon the decree of
outlawry drawn up by the members of the Left remaining at liberty; they
snatched the copies from each other. Men mounted on the kerbstones read
aloud the names of the 120 signatories, and, still more than on the day
before, each significant or celebrated name was hailed with applause.
The crowd increased every moment--and the anger. The entire Rue Saint
Denis presented the strange aspect of a street with all the doors and
windows closed, and all the inhabitants in the open air. Look at the
houses, there is death; look at the street, it is the tempest.

Some fifty determined men suddenly emerged from a side alley, and
began to run through the streets, saying, "To arms! Long live the
Representatives of the Left! Long live the Constitution!" The disarming
of the National Guards began. It was carried out more easily than on
the preceding evening. In less than an hour more than 150 muskets had
been obtained.

In the meanwhile the street became covered with barricades.

CHAPTER X.

MY VISIT TO THE BARRICADE

My coachman deposited me at the corne