the centre of the city did not know. The news spread during the
day, however, and there was a great panic in the evening. Everybody
began to make preparations for flight, the soldiers being anxious
to get home and change their uniforms for plain clothes. No one
knew with any degree of certainty where the enemy really was, nor
how far he had advanced; only one thing was certain, that the game
was played out, and that _sauve qui peut_ must be the order of the
day. Men, women, and children were rushing frantically about the
streets, demanding news, and repeating it with a hundred variations.
The whole scene was lit up by fires which blazed in all directions.
At last the night gave place to dawn, and the scene was one to be
remembered for a lifetime. The faces of the crowd wore different
expressions of horror, amazement, and abject terror.... Early in
the morning of Wednesday 24th, I, with some others, was ordered
to the barricade of La Roquette.[1] My companions were very good
fellows, with one exception,--a grumpy old wretch who had served
in Africa, and could talk about nothing but the heat of Algeria
and the chances for plunder he had let slip there. Finding nothing
to do at the barricade, I tied my horse and fell asleep upon the
pavement. I dreamed I was at a great dinner-party in my father's
house, and could get nothing to eat, though dishes were handed
to me in due course. Many times afterwards my sleeping thoughts
took that direction. I really believe that there were times when
I and many others would willingly have been shot, if we could have
secured one good meal, When I awoke, about mid-day, in the Rue de
la Roquette, I found my companions gone to the _mairie_ of the
Eleventh Arrondissement, and I followed them. Our uniform was not
unlike that of the troops of the line in the French army, so we
were taken by the crowd for deserters, and hailed with 'Ah, les
bon garcons! Ah, les bons patriotes!' and we shouted back in turn
with all our might, 'Vive la Commune! Vive la Republique!' Those
words were in my mouth the whole of the next three days. The people
never saw a horseman without shrieking to him, 'How is all going on
at present?' To which the answer was invariably, 'All goes well!
_Vive la Commune! Vive la Republique!_' though the enemy might at
that moment be within five hundred yards. Indeed, the infatuation and
credulity displayed by the French, not only during the insurrection,
but the whole war, was absurd