and will admit
us. You can guide us both up the staircase and behind the scenes, and we
can easily hunt out some hole or corner in which to hide until the fight
is over."--"Then," said I, feeling rather disgusted with my companion,
"we can bravely walk out of the front door on the boulevards, and go and
eat a comfortable breakfast, while the others are busy carrying away our
dead comrades from the staircase we ought to have helped to defend!"

The poor man looked at me aghast, and then went off. I saw that I had
hurt his feelings, and I thought perhaps I had been wrong in making him
feel the cowardice of his proposition. I had known him for some months;
he lived in the same street as I did, and I remembered that he had a
wife and children. Perhaps he was right in wishing to protect his life
at any price. I thought it over for a minute or two, and then it went
out of my mind altogether.

At four in the morning we had another alarm; in an instant every one was
on foot and rushing to the windows. The house to which I was ordered was
the very one that had inspired my ingenious friend with his novel plan
of evasion. I found him already installed in the room from whence we
were to fire into the street.--"You do not know what I have done," said
he, coming up to me.--"No."--"Well, you know the door which opens on to
the passage; you remember it?"--"Of course I do."--"I found there was a
key; so what do you think I did? I double-locked the door, and went and
slipped the key down the nearest drain! Ha! ha! The fellow who tries to
escape that way will be finely caught!"

I seized him cordially by the hand and shook it many times. He was
beaming, and I was pleased also. I could not help feeling that however
low France may have fallen, one must never despair of a country in which
cowards even can be brave.

XIV.

On Friday, the 24th of March, at nine in the morning, we are still in
the quarter of the Bourse. Some of the men have not slept for
forty-eight hours. We are tired but still resolved. Our numbers are
increasing every hour. I have just seen three battalions, with
trumpeters and all complete, come up and join us. They will now be able
to let the men who have been so long on duty get a little rest. As to
what is going on, we are but very incompletely informed. The Federals
are fortifying themselves more strongly than ever at the Place de
l'Hotel de Ville and the Place Vendome. They are very numerous, and have
lo