Some fifty determined men suddenly emerged from a side alley, and began to run through the streets, saying, “To arms!  Long live the Representatives of the Left!  Long live the Constitution!” The disarming of the National Guards began.  It was carried out more easily than on the preceding evening.  In less than an hour more than 150 muskets had been obtained.

In the meanwhile the street became covered with barricades.

CHAPTER X.

MY VISIT TO THE BARRICADE

My coachman deposited me at the corner of Saint Eustache, and said to me, “Here you are in the hornets’ nest.”

He added, “I will wait for you in the Rue de la Vrilliere, near the Place des Victoires.  Take your time.”

I began walking from barricade to barricade.

In the first I met De Flotte, who offered to serve me as a guide.  There is not a more determined man than De Flotte.  I accepted his offer; he took me everywhere where my presence could be of use.

On the way he gave me an account of the steps taken by him to print our proclamations; Boule’s printing-office having failed him, he had applied to a lithographic press, at No. 30, Rue Bergere, and at the peril of their lives two brave men had printed 500 copies of our decrees.  These two true-hearted workmen were named, the one Rubens, the other Achille Poincellot.

While walking I made jottings in pencil (with Baudin’s pencil, which I had with me); I registered facts at random; I reproduce this page here.  These living facts are useful for History; the coup d’etat is there, as though freshly bleeding.

“Morning of the 4th.  It looks as if the combat was suspended.  Will it burst forth again?  Barricades visited by me:  one at the corner of Saint Eustache.  One at the Oyster Market.  One in the Rue Mauconseil.  One in the Rue Tiquetonne.  One in the Rue Mandar (Rocher de Cancale).  One barring the Rue du Cadran and the Rue Montorgueil.  Four closing the Petit-Carreau.  The beginning of one between the Rue des Deux Portes and the Rue Saint Sauveur, barring the Rue Saint Denis.  One, the largest, barring the Rue Saint Denis, at the top of the Rue Guerin-Boisseau.  One barring the Rue Grenetat.  One farther on in the Rue Grenetat, barring the Rue Bourg-Labbe (in the centre an overturned flour wagon; a good barricade).  In the Rue Saint Denis one barring the Rue de Petit-Lion-Saint-Sauveur.  One barring the Rue du Grand Hurleur, with its four corners barricaded.  This barricade has already been attacked this morning.  A combatant, Massonnet, a comb-maker of 154, Rue Saint Denis, received a ball in his overcoat; Dupapet, called ‘the man with the long beard,’ was the last to stay on the summit of the barricade.  He was heard to cry out to the officers commanding the attack, ‘You are traitors!’ He is believed to have been shot.  The troops retired—­strange to say without