bearers from the insurgents were in conference with the President
of the Assembly.
Thereupon they all made merry; and as he had a dozen francs left,
Frederick sent for a dozen bottles of wine, hoping by this means to
hasten his deliverance. Suddenly a discharge of musketry was heard. The
drinking stopped. They peered with distrustful eyes into the unknown--it
might be Henry V.
In order to get rid of responsibility, they took Frederick to the
Mayor's office in the eleventh arrondissement, which he was not
permitted to leave till nine o'clock in the morning.
He started at a running pace from the Quai Voltaire. At an open window
an old man in his shirt-sleeves was crying, with his eyes raised. The
Seine glided peacefully along. The sky was of a clear blue; and in the
trees round the Tuileries birds were singing.
Frederick was just crossing the Place du Carrousel when a litter
happened to be passing by. The soldiers at the guard-house immediately
presented arms; and the officer, putting his hand to his shako, said:
"Honour to unfortunate bravery!" This phrase seemed to have almost
become a matter of duty. He who pronounced it appeared to be, on each
occasion, filled with profound emotion. A group of people in a state of
fierce excitement followed the litter, exclaiming:
"We will avenge you! we will avenge you!"
The vehicles kept moving about on the boulevard, and women were making
lint before the doors. Meanwhile, the outbreak had been quelled, or very
nearly so. A proclamation from Cavaignac, just posted up, announced the
fact. At the top of the Rue Vivienne, a company of the Garde Mobile
appeared. Then the citizens uttered cries of enthusiasm. They raised
their hats, applauded, danced, wished to embrace them, and to invite
them to drink; and flowers, flung by ladies, fell from the balconies.
At last, at ten o'clock, at the moment when the cannon was booming as an
attack was being made on the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, Frederick reached
the abode of Dussardier. He found the bookkeeper in his garret, lying
asleep on his back. From the adjoining apartment a woman came forth with
silent tread--Mademoiselle Vatnaz.
She led Frederick aside and explained to him how Dussardier had got
wounded.
On Saturday, on the top of a barricade in the Rue Lafayette, a young
fellow wrapped in a tricoloured flag cried out to the National Guards:
"Are you going to shoot your brothers?" As they advanced, Dussardier
threw down his
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