lock the people, by voluntary surrender or by force, had got
possession of five barracks, nearly all the municipal buildings, the
most favourable strategic points. Of its own accord, without any effort,
the Monarchy was melting away in rapid dissolution, and now an attack
was made on the guard-house of the Chateau d'Eau, in order to liberate
fifty prisoners, who were not there.

Frederick was forced to stop at the entrance to the square. It was
filled with groups of armed men. The Rue Saint-Thomas and the Rue
Fromanteau were occupied by companies of the Line. The Rue de Valois
was choked up by an enormous barricade. The smoke which fluttered about
at the top of it partly opened. Men kept running overhead, making
violent gestures; they vanished from sight; then the firing was again
renewed. It was answered from the guard-house without anyone being seen
inside. Its windows, protected by oaken window-shutters, were pierced
with loop-holes; and the monument with its two storys, its two wings,
its fountain on the first floor and its little door in the centre, was
beginning to be speckled with white spots under the shock of the
bullets. The three steps in front of it remained unoccupied.

At Frederick's side a man in a Greek cap, with a cartridge-box over his
knitted vest, was holding a dispute with a woman with a Madras
neckerchief round her shoulders. She said to him:

"Come back now! Come back!"

"Leave me alone!" replied the husband. "You can easily mind the porter's
lodge by yourself. I ask, citizen, is this fair? I have on every
occasion done my duty--in 1830, in '32, in '34, and in '39! To-day
they're fighting again. I must fight! Go away!"

And the porter's wife ended by yielding to his remonstrances and to
those of a National Guard near them--a man of forty, whose simple face
was adorned with a circle of white beard. He loaded his gun and fired
while talking to Frederick, as cool in the midst of the outbreak as a
horticulturist in his garden. A young lad with a packing-cloth thrown
over him was trying to coax this man to give him a few caps, so that he
might make use of a gun he had, a fine fowling-piece which a "gentleman"
had made him a present of.

"Catch on behind my back," said the good man, "and keep yourself from
being seen, or you'll get yourself killed!"

The drums beat for the charge. Sharp cries, hurrahs of triumph burst
forth. A continual ebbing to and fro made the multitude sway backward
and forw