larmet sent me word in my refuge that a movement would take place at
Belleville on Tuesday the 9th. I waited until the 12th. Nothing stirred.
The people were indeed dead. Happily such deaths as these, like the
deaths of the gods, are only for a time.

I had a last interview with Jules Favre and Michel de Bourges at Madame
Didier's in the Rue de la Ville-Leveque. It was at night. Bastide came
there. This brave man said to me,--

"You are about to leave Paris; for myself, I remain here. Take me as
your lieutenant. Direct me from the depths of your exile. Make use of me
as an arm which you have in France."

"I will make use of you as of a heart," I said to him.

On the 14th, amidst the adventures which my son Charles relates in his
book, I succeeded in reaching Brussels.

The vanquished are like cinders, Destiny blows upon them and disperses
them. There was a gloomy vanishing of all the combatants for Right and
for Law. A tragical disappearance.

[33] "Les Hommes de l'Exile," by Charles Hugo.

CHAPTER XII.

THE EXILED

The Crime having succeeded, all hastened to join it. To persist was
possible, to resist was not possible. The situation became more and more
desperate. One would have said that an enormous wall was rising upon the
horizon ready to close in. The outlet: Exile.

The great souls, the glories of the people, emigrated. Thus there was
seen this dismal sight--France driven out from France.

But what the Present appears to lose, the Future gains, the hand which
scatters is also the hand which sows.

The Representatives of the Left, surrounded, tracked, pursued, hunted
down, wandered for several days from refuge to refuge. Those who escaped
found great difficulty in leaving Paris and France. Madier de Montjan
had very black and thick eyebrows, he shaved off half of them, cut his
hair, and let his beard grow. Yvan, Pelletier, Gindrier, and Doutre
shaved off their moustaches and beards. Versigny reached Brussels on the
14th with a passport in the name of Morin. Schoelcher dressed himself up
as a priest. This costume became him admirably, and suited his austere
countenance and grave voice. A worthy priest helped him to disguise
himself, and lent him his cassock and his band, made him shave off his
whiskers a few days previously, so that he should not be betrayed by the
white trace of his freshly-cut beard, gave him his own passport, and
only left him at the railway station.[34]

De Flotte disgu