dred paces from the
barrier his coachman made him descend and turn back. Frederick was
walking along the pathway, when suddenly a sentinel thrust out his
bayonet. Four men seized him, exclaiming:

"This is one of them! Look out! Search him! Brigand! scoundrel!"

And he was so thoroughly stupefied that he let himself be dragged to the
guard-house of the barrier, at the very point where the Boulevards des
Gobelins and de l'Hopital and Rues Godefroy and Mauffetard converge.

Four barricades formed at the ends of four different ways enormous
sloping ramparts of paving-stones. Torches were glimmering here and
there. In spite of the rising clouds of dust he could distinguish
foot-soldiers of the Line and National Guards, all with their faces
blackened, their chests uncovered, and an aspect of wild excitement.
They had just captured the square, and had shot down a number of men.
Their rage had not yet cooled. Frederick said he had come from
Fontainebleau to the relief of a wounded comrade who lodged in the Rue
Bellefond. Not one of them would believe him at first. They examined his
hands; they even put their noses to his ear to make sure that he did not
smell of powder.

However, by dint of repeating the same thing, he finally satisfied a
captain, who directed two fusiliers to conduct him to the guard-house of
the Jardin des Plantes. They descended the Boulevard de l'Hopital. A
strong breeze was blowing. It restored him to animation.

After this they turned up the Rue du Marche aux Chevaux. The Jardin des
Plantes at the right formed a long black mass, whilst at the left the
entire front of the Pitie, illuminated at every window, blazed like a
conflagration, and shadows passed rapidly over the window-panes.

The two men in charge of Frederick went away. Another accompanied him to
the Polytechnic School. The Rue Saint-Victor was quite dark, without a
gas-lamp or a light at any window to relieve the gloom. Every ten
minutes could be heard the words:

"Sentinels! mind yourselves!"

And this exclamation, cast into the midst of the silence, was prolonged
like the repeated striking of a stone against the side of a chasm as it
falls through space.

Every now and then the stamp of heavy footsteps could be heard drawing
nearer. This was nothing less than a patrol consisting of about a
hundred men. From this confused mass escaped whisperings and the dull
clanking of iron; and, moving away with a rhythmic swing, it melted into