re offered
him. "No," was the reply, "bread and water are all I want."

Yet such was the scarcity of food that horses were killed and eaten at
the Hotel de Ville, on the third day of the Revolution.

"Arms--arms!" shouted a band of workmen, entering a house on the Rue
Richelieu. The proprietor, alarmed, shouted for help. "Do you think us
robbers?" was the indignant reply. "Give us your weapons!"

The weapons were given and the band retired; on the door they wrote,
"Here we received arms!"

At five o'clock, on the evening of the 24th of February, a proclamation
to the citizens of Paris, issued by the Provisional Government then in
session at the Hotel de Ville, declared the Revolution
accomplished--that eighty thousand of the National Guard and one hundred
thousand of the people were in arms--that order as well as liberty must
now be secured, and the people, with the National Guard, were appointed
guardians of Paris.

The effect of this proclamation was magical. Never was Paris so well
protected as on that night of the 24th of February, when, filled with
barricades, she had no police and was guarded by her citizens.

And how was constituted the Provisional Government whose power was thus
implicitly obeyed? It was founded by the people who obeyed it. This was
the only secret.

From the Chamber of Deputies to the Hotel de Ville proceeded the members
of the Provisional Government. They marched under a canopy of sabres,
pikes and bayonets into halls stained with blood and encumbered with the
slain, and there, at a small table, while the conflict between the two
Republics had already commenced, within an hour had they organized their
body by the nomination of Armand Marrast, of "Le National," Ferdinand
Flocon, of "La Reforme," Albert, a workman, and Louis Blanc, the editor
and author, as Secretaries of the Government; their first official act
was to issue a proclamation to the people.

The scenes witnessed the night which succeeded in Paris will never be
forgotten by those who witnessed them. Patrols promenaded the streets,
the men of the barricades slept upon their weapons, beside their works,
and through all that night ceaselessly toiled the press to spread over
all the world the news of the great events of the three past days in
Paris.

Upon the door of an edifice situated in the Rue Jean Jacques Rousseau--a
street which was filled with barricades of immense size and
strength--was posted a printed placard, "The