and cuttingly along the
deserted streets, and rain, which froze as it fell, at intervals dashed
down.

The Hotel de Ville was encompassed by troops as the friends approached
it.

"Is that a cannon?" asked Lamartine, pointing to a dark object that
protruded from an embrasure of the edifice.

"It is!" replied Dantes.

"Then the revolution has, indeed, begun! Artillery in the streets of
Paris!"

"Behind each column of the portico of the Chamber of Deputies this day
frowned a concealed cannon!" was the significant response.

The friends turned off from the Hotel de Ville, and, crossing the right
branch of the Seine, were under the deep shadows of Notre Dame. But all
was tranquil and still. Only the howlings of the wintry blast were heard
through the towers and architectural ornaments of the old pile. Up the
Rue St. Jacques, into the Quartier Latin, they then proceeded, but the
students and the grisettes seemed to be fast asleep. Turning back, they
passed the Fish Market, and here a large body of cavalry had bivouacked.
Patrols marched to and fro; officers in huge dark cloaks smoked,
laughed and chatted, regardless of the morrow. The friends went on. All
was dark in the faubourg which succeeded. Not a light gleamed, save, in
some lofty casement, the fainting candle of the worn-out needlewoman or
of the overtasked student.

"Ah!" exclaimed Lamartine, as they passed one of these flickering
lights, "who knows what plotting head and ready hand may be beside that
candle? Who knows of the weapon burnished, the cartridge filled and the
sabre sharpened by that light for the morrow?"

"The morrow!" exclaimed M. Dantes; "that morrow decides the fate of
France!"

And the friends parted.

CHAPTER XIX.

THE SECOND DAY.

The 23d of February dawned on Paris as a city under arms. Artillery
frowned in all the public places; the barricades of the preceding night
had been thrown down as fast as erected; National Guards thronged the
thoroughfares; the people swarmed along the boulevards. In the
neighborhood of the Porte St. Denis and the Porte St. Martin, barricades
rose as if by magic, but were as if by magic swept away. Cavalry
bivouacked in the streets, and ordnance was leveled along their entire
extent. The avenues were closely invested, and even old men and women
were arrested on their way to their own thresholds. From time to time
single shots or volleys of musketry were heard in the distance, and
wounded men we