“M.  Victor Hugo has just published an appeal to pillage and assassination.”

In these terms the journal of the Elysee described the proclamation which I had dictated to Baudin, and which may be read in page 103 of this History.

As I threw back the paper on the table one of the two defenders of the barricade entered.  It was the short man.

“A glass of water,” said he.  By the side of the medicine bottles there was a decanter and a glass.  He drank, greedily.  He held in his hand a morsel of bread and a sausage, which he was biting.

Suddenly we heard several successive explosions, following one after another, and which seemed but a short distance off.  In the silence of this dark night it resembled the sound of a load of wood being shot on to the pavement.

The calm and serious voice of the other combatant shouted from outside, “It is beginning.”

“Have I time to finish my bread?” asked the little one.

“Yes,” said the other.

The little one then turned to me.

“Citizen Representative,” said he to me, “those are volleys.  They are attacking the barricades over there.  Really you must go away.”

I answered him, “But you yourselves are going to stay here.”

“As for us, we are armed,” resumed he; “as for you, you are not.  You will only get yourself killed without benefiting any one.  If you had a gun, I should say nothing.  But you have not.  You must go away.”

“I cannot,” I answered him.  “I am waiting for some one.”

He wished to continue and to urge me.  I pressed his hand.

“Let me do as I like,” said I.

He understood that my duty was to remain, and no longer persisted.

There was a pause.  He again began to bite his bread.  The gurgling of the dying man alone was audible.  At that moment a sort of deep and hollow booming reached us.  The old woman started from her chair, muttering, “It is the cannon!”

“No,” said the little man, “it is the slamming of a street-door.”  Then he resumed, “There now!  I have finished my bread,” and he dusted one hand against the other, and went out.

In the meantime the explosions continued, and seemed to come nearer.  A noise sounded in the shop.  It was the last-maker who was coming back.  He appeared on the threshold of the ambulance.  He was pale.

“Here I am,” said he, “I have come to fetch you.  We must go home.  Let us be off at once.”

I arose from the chair where I had seated myself.  “What does this mean?  Will they not come?”

“No,” he answered, “no one will come.  All is at an end.”