ore No. 6 of the Rue des Rosiers: it is a little
house I had often seen, a peaceful and comfortable habitation, with a
garden in front. What passed within it perhaps will never be known. Was
it there that the Central Committee of the National Guard held their
sittings in full conclave? or were they represented by a few of its
members? Many persons think that the house was not occupied, and that
the National Guards conducted their prisoners within its walls to make
the crowd believe they were proceeding to a trial, or at least to give
the appearance of legality to the execution of premeditated acts. Of one
thing there remains little doubt, namely, that soldiers of the line
stood round about at the time, and that the trial, if any took place,
was not long, the condemned being conducted to a walled enclosure at the
end of the street.

[Illustration: HOTEL DE VILLE, AS FORTIFIED BY THE NATIONAL GUARD,
MARCH, 1871. The Hotel de Ville of Paris, which witnessed so many
national ceremonies and republican triumphs, was commenced in 1533, and
it was finished in 1628. Here the first Bourbon, Henry IV., celebrated
his entry into Paris after the siege of 1589, and Bailly the _maire_, on
the 17th July, 1789, presented Louis XVI. to the people, wearing a
tricolor cockade. Henry IV. became a Catholic in order to enter "his
good city of Paris" whilst Louis XVI. wore the democratic insignia in
order to keep it. A few days later the 172 commissioners of sections,
representing the municipality of Paris, established the Commune. The
Hotel de Ville was the seat of the First Committee of Public Safety, and
from the green chamber, Robespierre governed the Convention and France
till his fall on the 9th Thermidor. From 1800 to 1830 fetes held the
place of political manifestations. In 1810 Bonaparte received
Marie-Louise here; in 1821, the baptism of the Duke of Bordeaux was
celebrated here; in 1825 fetes were given to the Duc d'Angouleme on his
return from Spain, and to Charles X., arriving from Rheims. Five years
later, from the same balcony where Bailly presented Louis XVI. to the
people, Lafayette, standing by the side of Louis Philippe, said, "This
is the best of Republics!" It was here, in 1848, that De Lamartine
courageously declared to an infuriated mob that, as long as _he_ lived,
the red flag should not be the flag of France. During the fatal days of
June, 1848, the Hotel de Ville was only saved from destruction by the
intrepidity of a