eeping mother, will fall by the hands
of her own children.

I had started, in company with a friend, from the Passage Choiseul on my
way to the Tuileries, which has been occupied since yesterday by a
battalion devoted to the Central Committee. On arming at the corner of
the Rue St. Roch and the Rue Neuve des Petits Champs we perceived a
considerable crowd in the direction of the Rue de la Paix. "What is
going on now?" said I to my friend. "I think," said he, "that it is an
unarmed manifestation going to the Place Vendome; it passed along the
boulevards a short time since, crying "_Vive l'Ordre_."

As we talked we were approaching the Rue de la Paix. All at once a
horrible noise was heard. It was the report of musketry. A white smoke
rose along the walls, cries issued from all parts, the crowd fled
terrified, and a hundred yards before us I saw a woman fall. Is she
wounded or dead? What is this massacre? What fearful deeds are passing
in open day, in this glorious sunshine? We had scarcely time to escape
into one of the cross-streets, followed by the frightened crowd, when
the shops were closed, hurriedly, and the horrible news spread to all
parts of terrified Paris.

Reports, varying extremely in form, spread with extraordinary rapidity;
some were grossly exaggerated, others the reverse. "Two hundred victims
have fallen," said one. "There were no balls in the guns," said another.
The opinions regarding the cause of the conflict were strangely various.
Perhaps we shall never know, with absolute certainty, what passed in the
Place, Vendome and the Rue de la Paix. For myself, I was at once; too
far and too near the scene of action; too near, for I had narrowly
missed being killed; too far, for I saw nothing but the smoke and the
flight, of the terrified crowd.

One thing certain is that the Friends of Order who, yesterday, succeeded
in assembling a large number of citizens, had to-day tried to renew its
attempt at pacification by unarmed numbers. Three or four thousand
persons entered the Rue de la Paix towards two o'clock in the afternoon,
crying, "_L'Ordre! L'Ordre! Vive l'Ordre!_" The Central Committee had
doubtless issued severe orders, for the foremost sentinels of the Place,
far from presenting arms to the "Friends of Order," as they had done the
day before, formally refused to let them continue their way. And then
what happened? Two crowds were face to face; one unarmed, the other
armed, both under strong excite