s very appropriate."

"It is the head-dress of the barricades."

"Sure!"

"Of la Villette, hein?"

"The man is mad!"

"Ah! look at that!"

"There goes a good rascal."

"A young man and his father perhaps."

"No!"

"Long live the students!"

"En avant!" roared the man in the red turban.

"Vive l'anarchie!" shouted an individual on the curb whose eyes were
glazed from absinthe.

The crowd laughed. Some applauded,--not so much the sentiment as the
drunken wit. The people were being entertained.

"We certainly have the street this day," observed Jean to his
companion.

"Right you are, my boy!"

Both noted the squadron of cuirassiers drawn up in front of the Opera,
the police agents massed on either side, and the regiment of the line
under arms in the Rue 4 Septembre close at hand. In the middle
distance a squadron of the Garde de Paris came leisurely up the Avenue
de l'Opera.

"You see, my friend," said Jean, smiling, "the government is looking
sharply after its strategic position."

"Vive l'armee!"

The man in the red turban swung his baton, and his resounding cry was
caught up by the manifestants. It was the voice of flattery and
conciliation extended to the army, through which the royalist party
hoped to win a throne.

But they were not alone there. From several quarters came sharp
rejoinders of "Vive la justice!" "Vive la republique!" "Vive la
France!"

While these cries seemed harmless if not proper, they were judged
seditious by the police, who made a dash for those who uttered them.
In another instant the man with the red turban would have saved the
agents the trouble of arresting the nearest person had not Jean
grasped the baton. The brute face had taken on a flush of red
ferocity. His blow restrained, the man spat in the face of his
intended victim and strode on.

"Not yet, my friend!" exclaimed the student leader. "What! precipitate
a fight here! Madness! We should be ridden down within three minutes!
The government will be sure to protect the Opera."

"Yes; you are always right, mon enfant," growled the man.

Meanwhile, the unfortunate Parisian who wanted "justice" got it; being
dragged off by two police agents, who took turns in kicking and
cuffing their prisoner on the way to the depot. There he was charged
with uttering seditious cries calculated to lead to a breach of the
peace.

Gathering confidence from immunity, however, the manifestants soon
ceased to observe this resp