A tradesman who was shutting up his shop said to me, “Don’t speak so loud, if they heard you talking like that, they would shoot you.”

“Well, then,” I replied, “you would parade my body, and my death would be a boon if the justice of God could result from it.”

All shouted “Long live Victor Hugo!”

“Shout ‘Long live the Constitution,’” said I.

A great cry of “Vive la Constitution!  Vive la Republique;” came forth from every breast.

Enthusiasm, indignation, anger flashed in the faces of all.  I thought then, and I still think, that this, perhaps, was the supreme moment.  I was tempted to carry off all that crowd, and to begin the battle.

Charamaule restrained me.  He whispered to me,—­

“You will bring about a useless fusillade.  Every one is unarmed.  The infantry is only two paces from us, and see, here comes the artillery.”

I looked round; in truth several pieces of cannon emerged at a quick trot from the Rue de Bondy, behind the Chateau d’Eau.

The advice to abstain, given by Charamaule, made a deep impression on me.  Coming from such a man, and one so dauntless, it was certainly not to be distrusted.  Besides, I felt myself bound by the deliberation which had just taken place at the meeting in the Rue Blanche.

I shrank before the responsibility which I should have incurred.  To have taken advantage of such a moment might have been victory, it might also have been a massacre.  Was I right?  Was I wrong?

The crowd thickened around us, and it became difficult to go forward.  We were anxious, however, to reach the rendezvous at Bonvalet’s.

Suddenly some one touched me on the arm.  It was Leopold Duras, of the National.

“Go no further,” he whispered, “the Restaurant Bonvalet is surrounded.  Michel de Bourges has attempted to harangue the People, but the soldiers came up.  He barely succeeded in making his escape.  Numerous Representatives who came to the meeting have been arrested.  Retrace your steps.  We are returning to the old rendezvous in the Rue Blanche.  I have been looking for you to tell you this.”

A cab was passing; Charamaule hailed the driver.  We jumped in, followed by the crowd, shouting, “Vive la Republique!  Vive Victor Hugo!”

It appears that just at that moment a squadron of sergents de ville arrived on the Boulevard to arrest me.  The coachman drove off at full speed.  A quarter of an hour afterwards we reached the Rue Blanche.

CHAPTER VIII.

“VIOLATION OF THE CHAMBER”

At seven o’clock in the morning the Pont de la Concorde was still free.  The large grated gate of the Palace of the Assembly was closed; through the bars might be seen the flight of steps, that flight of steps whence the Republic had been proclaimed on the 4th May, 1848, covered with soldiers; and their piled arms might be distinguished upon the platform behind those high columns, which, during the time of the Constituent Assembly, after the 15th of May and the 23d June, masked small mountain mortars, loaded and pointed.