aiety was forced. Many of them were evidently not quite sober; and
there was a disorderly want of soldiership in their mien and armament
which inspired distrust among such vieux moustaches as, too old for
other service than that of the ramparts, mixed here and there among the
crowd.

But when De Mauleon's company passed, the vieux moustaches impulsively
touched each other. They recognised the march of well-drilled men; the
countenances grave and severe, the eyes not looking on this side and
that for admiration, the step regularly timed; and conspicuous among
these men the tall stature and calm front of the leader.

"These fellows will fight well," growled a vieux moustache, "where did
they fish out their leader?"

"Don't you know?" said a bourgeois. "Victor de Mauleon. He won the cross
in Algeria for bravery. I recollect him when I was very young; the very
devil for women and fighting."

"I wish there were more such devils for fighting and fewer for women,"
growled again le vieux moustache.

One incessant roar of cannon all the night of the 29th. The populace
had learned the names of the French cannons, and fancied they
could distinguish the several sounds of their thunder. "There
spits 'Josephine'!" shouts an invalid sailor. "There howls our own
'Populace'!" cries a Red Republican from Belleville.

[The "Populace" had been contributed to the artillery,
sou a sou, by the working class.]

"There sings 'Le Chatiment'!" laughed Gustave Rameau, who was now become
an enthusiastic admirer of the Victor Hugo he had before affected to
despise. And all the while, mingled with the roar of the cannon,
came, far and near from the streets, from the ramparts, the gusts of
song--song sometimes heroic, sometimes obscene, more often carelessly
joyous. The news of General Vinoy's success during the early part of the
day had been damped by the evening report of Ducrot's delay in crossing
the swollen Marne. But the spirits of the Parisians rallied from a
momentary depression on the excitement at night of that concert of
martial music.

During that night, close under the guns of the double redoubt of
Gravelle and La Faisanderie, eight pontoon-bridges were thrown over
the Marne; and at daybreak the first column of the third army under
Blanchard and Renoult crossed with all their artillery, and, covered
by the fire of the double redoubts, of the forts of Vincennes, Nogent,
Rossuey, and the batteries of Mont Avron, had an hour