rricades in the street there
should have been ten, and that something must have happened; he added,--

"However, I will go and see; promise to wait for me here."

"I promise you," I answered, "I will wait all night if necessary."

He left me.

The old woman had reseated herself near the little girl, who did not
seem to understand much of what was passing round her, and who from time
to time raised great calm eyes towards me. Both were poorly clad, and it
seemed to me that the child had stockingless feet. "My man has not yet
come back," said the old woman, "my poor man has not yet come back. I
hope nothing has happened to him!" With many heart-rending "My God's,"
and all the while quickly picking her lint, she wept. I could not help
thinking with anguish of the old man we had seen stretched on the
pavement at a few paces distant.

A newspaper was lying on the table. I took it up, and I unfolded it. It
was the _P----_, the rest of the title had been torn off. A
blood-stained hand was plainly imprinted on it. A wounded man on
entering had probably placed his hand on the table on the spot where the
newspaper lay. My eyes fell upon these lines:--

"M. Victor Hugo has just published an appeal to pillage and
assassination."

In these terms the journal of the Elysee described the proclamation
which I had dictated to Baudin, and which may be read in page 103 of
this History.

As I threw back the paper on the table one of the two defenders of the
barricade entered. It was the short man.

"A glass of water," said he. By the side of the medicine bottles there
was a decanter and a glass. He drank, greedily. He held in his hand a
morsel of bread and a sausage, which he was biting.

Suddenly we heard several successive explosions, following one after
another, and which seemed but a short distance off. In the silence of
this dark night it resembled the sound of a load of wood being shot on
to the pavement.

The calm and serious voice of the other combatant shouted from outside,
"It is beginning."

"Have I time to finish my bread?" asked the little one.

"Yes," said the other.

The little one then turned to me.

"Citizen Representative," said he to me, "those are volleys. They are
attacking the barricades over there. Really you must go away."

I answered him, "But you yourselves are going to stay here."

"As for us, we are armed," resumed he; "as for you, you are not. You
will only get yourself killed without benef