and pass on. Soon I see open
shops and passengers in the streets. This tradesmen's quarter seems to
have outlived the riot of Paris. Here one might almost forget the
frightful civil war which wages so near, if the conversation of those
around did not betray the anguish of the speakers, and if you did not
hear the cannon roaring out unceasingly, "People of Paris, listen to me!
I am ruining your houses. Listen to me! I am killing your children."

On the boulevards more barricades; some nearly finished, others scarcely
commenced. One constructed near the Porte Saint Martin looks formidable.
That spot seems destined to be the theatre of bloody scenes, of riot and
revolution. In 1852, corpses laid piled up behind the railing, and all
the pavement tinged with blood. I return home profoundly sad; I can
scarcely think.--I feel in a dream, and am tired to death; my eyelids
droop of themselves; I am like one of those houses there with closed
shutters.

Near the Gymnase I meet a friend whom I thought was at Versailles. We
shake hands sadly. "When did you come back?" I ask.--"To-day; I followed
the troops."--Then turning back with me he tells me what he has seen. He
had a pass, and walked into Paris behind the artillery and the line, as
far as the Trocadero, where the soldiers halted to take up their line of
battle. Not a single man was visible along the whole length of the
quays. At the Champ de Mars he did not see any insurgents. The musketry
seemed very violent near Vaugirard on the Pont Royal and around the
Palais de l'Industrie. Shells from Montmartre repeatedly fell on the
quays. He could not see much,--however only the smoke in the distance.
Not a soul did he meet. Such frightful noise in such solitude was
fearful. He continued his way under shelter of the parapet. In one place
he saw some gamins cutting huge pieces of flesh off the dead body of a
horse that was lying in the path. There must have been fighting there.
Down by the water a man fishing while two shells fell in the river, a
little higher up, a yard or two from the shore. Then he thought it
prudent to get nearer to the Palais de l'Industrie. The fighting was
nearly over then, but not quite. The Champs Elysees was melancholy in
the extreme; not a soul was there. This was only too literally true; for
several corpses lay on the ground. He saw a soldier of the line lying
beneath a tree, his forehead covered with blood. The man opened his
month as if to speak as he he