f Alibaud, I think?"

"That took place about sunset on the 25th of June, '36," was the reply.
"Alibaud discharged a walking-stick-gun at the King, as he left the
Tuileries, on his way to Neuilly, at the corner of the Porte Royale.
That Alibaud was a mere boy, and a very interesting and intelligent boy,
too; but for some mysterious cause he did not find favor with the court,
as did Fieschi. He evidently attempted the assassination from
conviction, from a feeling of manifest destiny. After his failure, he
only wished to die, and to die at once. All who have succeeded Alibaud
have been but vulgar cut-throats."

"In what year was the insurrection of Armand Barbes and Martin Bernard?"
asked Flocon. "That proved most disastrous to our cause."

"That was in '39, May, I think," answered Rollin. "Barbes, Blanqui and
Bernard were arraigned as leaders. Marie and myself were advocates for
Barbes. Blanqui was sentenced to death and Barbes to the galleys for
life. But we obtained commutation of penalty for both."

"And where is to be the end of all these things?" asked Marrast,
gloomily, as he continued pacing the chamber with folded arms, his head
resting on his bosom. "Are the ten years on which we have now entered to
be characterized by the fruitless efforts of the past? Are the people of
France again, and again, and again to strike for freedom, only to be
stricken into the dust and trampled beneath the armed heel of a despot's
myrmidons? Are the streets of Lyons, Paris and Marseilles again to be
drenched with the life-blood of their dwellers, poured out as freely as
water and as fruitlessly? Are we all again, for full ten years, to toil,
strive, struggle and suffer; to be hunted down like the vilest
criminals, and, like criminals, plunged into the most pestilential
dungeons; to be stripped like slaves of our hard-won earnings, and to be
deprived of the most humble franchises of men claiming at all to be
free; to be treated with scorn and contumely, and to be debarred the
exercise of those common rights, which, like air and water, belong to
all; I say, brothers, are all these scenes to be repeated during the ten
years on which we have now entered, as they have been witnessed during
the ten years now past?"

"You speak sadly, Armand," observed Rollin.

"Not so sadly as I feel. I have listened with attention to the
recapitulation of the political events of the past ten years in France;
and most plainly, and as sadly as plainly