Towards noon a Commissary of Police, named Boudrot, appeared at the divan of the Rue Lepelletier.  He was accompanied by the police agent Delahodde.  Delahodde was that traitorous socialist writer, who, upon being unmasked, had passed from the Secret Police to the Public Police Service.  I knew him, and I record this incident.  In 1832 he was a master in the school at which were my two sons, then boys, and he had addressed poetry to me.  At the same time he was acting the spy upon me.  The Lepelletier divan was the place of meeting of a large number of Republican journalists.  Delahodde knew them all.  A detachment of the Republican Guard occupied the entrances to the cafe.  Then ensued an inspection of all the ordinary customers, Delahodde walking first, with the Commissary behind him.  Two Municipal Guards followed them.  From time to time Delahodde looked round and said, “Lay hold of this man.”  In this manner some score of writers were arrested, among whom were Hennett de Kesler.[20] On the preceding evening Kesler had been on the Saint Antoine barricade.  Kesler said to Delahodde, “You are a miserable wretch.”  “And you are an ungrateful fellow,” replied Delahodde; “I am saving your life.”  Curious words; for it is difficult to believe that Delahodde was in the secret of what was to happen on the fatal day of the Fourth.

At the head-quarters of the Committee encouraging information was forwarded to us from every side.  Testelin, the Representative of Lille, is not only a learned man, but a brave man.  On the morning of the 3d he had reached, shortly after me, the Saint Antoine barricade, where Baudin had just been killed.  All was at an end in that direction.  Testelin was accompanied by Charles Gambon, another dauntless man.[21] The two Representatives wandered through the agitated and dark streets, little followed, in no way understood, seeking a ferment of insurgents, and only finding a swarming of the curious.  Testelin, nevertheless, having come to the Committee, informed us of the following:—­At the corner of a street of the Faubourg Saint Antoine Gambon and himself had noticed a crowd.  They had gone up to it.  This crowd was reading a bill placarded on a wall.  It was the Appeal to Arms signed “Victor Hugo.”  Testelin asked Gambon, “Have you a pencil?” “Yes,” answered Gambon.  Testelin took the pencil, went up to the placard, and wrote his name beneath mine, then he gave the pencil to Gambon, who in turn wrote his name beneath that of Testelin.  Upon this the crowd shouted, “Bravo! these are true-hearted men!” “Shout ‘Long live the Republic!’” cried Testelin.  All shouted “Long live the Republic!” “And from above, from the open windows,” added Gambon, “women clapped their hands.”

“The little hands of women applauding are a good sign,” said Michel de Bourges.