reatening
gesture on their part; they merely looked at the flag still floating
over the Tuileries, and passed on. When I got back to the Boulevards, I
sat down outside the Cafe de la Paix determined not to stir if possible.
I knew that whatever happened the news of it would soon be brought
thither. I was not mistaken.

The first news we had was that the National Guards had replaced the
regulars inside and around the Palais-Bourbon, which was either a sign
that the latter could be no longer depended upon, or that the
Republicans in the Chamber had carried that measure in their own
interest. I am bound to admit that I would always sooner take the word
of a French officer than that of a deputy, of no matter what shade; and
I heard afterwards that the troops at the Napoleon barracks and
elsewhere had begun to fraternize with the people as early as eight in
the morning, by shouting, from the windows of their rooms, "Vive la
Republique!" The Chamber was invaded, nevertheless; it is as well to
state that this invasion gave Jules Favre & Co. a chance of repairing in
hot haste to the Hotel de Ville, where the Government of the National
Defence was proclaimed.

To return to my vantage-post at the Cafe de la Paix. The crowds on the
Place de la Concorde, apparently stationed there since early morning,
did not seem to me to have been brought thither at the instance of a
leader or in obedience to a watchword. I except, of course, the groups
of which I have already spoken, and which jeered at the republican
deputies. The streams of people I met on my return in the Rue de Rivoli
seemed impelled by their own curiosity to the Chamber of Deputies. Not
so the procession which hove in sight almost the moment I had sat down
at the Cafe. It wheeled to the left when reaching the Rue de la Paix. It
was composed of National Guards with and without their muskets, each
company preceded by its own officers,--the armed ones infinitely more
numerous than the unarmed, but all marching in good order and in utter
silence; in fact, so silently as to bode mischief. Behind and before
there strode large contingents of ordinary citizens, and I noticed two
things: that few of them wore blouses, and that a good many wore kepis,
apparently quite new. The wearers, though equally undemonstrative, gave
one the impression of being the leaders. Most of those around me shook
their heads ominously as they passed; their silence did not impose upon
them. I am free to