night what crowds thronged from Paris to the top of the Montmartre
heights, from the observatory on which the celebrated inventor Bazin
had lighted up, with some magical electric machine, all the plain of
Gennevilliers from Mont Valerien to the Fort de la Briche! The splendour
of the blaze wrapped the great city;--distinctly above the roofs of
the houses soared the Dome des Invalides, the spires of Notre Dame, the
giant turrets of the Tuileries;--and died away on resting on the infames
scapulos Acroceraunia, the "thunder crags" of the heights occupied by
the invading army.

Lemercier, De Breze, and the elder Rameau--who, despite his peaceful
habits and grey hairs, insisted on joining in the aid of la patrie--were
among the National Guards attached to the Fort de la Briche and the
neighbouring eminence, and they met in conversation.

"What a victory we have had!" said the old Rameau.

"Rather mortifying to your son, M. Rameau," said LeMercier.

"Mortifying to my son, sir!--the victory of his countrymen. What do you
mean?"

"I had the honour to hear M. Gustave the other night at the club de la
Vengeance."

"Bon Dieu! do you frequent those tragic reunions?" asked De Breze.

"They are not at all tragic: they are the only comedies left us, as one
must amuse one's self somewhere, and the club de la Vengeance is the
prettiest thing of the sort going. I quite understand why it should
fascinate a poet like your son, M. Rameau. It is held in a salle de
cafe chantant--style Louis Quinze--decorated with a pastoral scene from
Watteau. I and my dog Fox drop in. We hear your son haranguing. In what
poetical sentences he despaired of the Republic! The Government (he
called them les charlatans de l'Hotel de Ville) were imbeciles. They
pretended to inaugurate a revolution, and did not employ the most
obvious of revolutionary means. There Fox and I pricked up our ears:
what were those means? Your son proceeded to explain: 'All mankind were
to be appealed to against individual interests. The commerce of luxury
was to be abolished. Clearly luxury was not at the command of all
mankind. Cafes and theatres were to be closed for ever--all mankind
could not go to cafes and theatres. It was idle to expect the masses to
combine for anything in which the masses had not an interest in common.
The masses had no interest in any property that did not belong to
the masses. Programmes of the society to be founded, called the Ligue
Cosmopolite Dem