I lowered the window of the omnibus.  I put out my head, and, looking fixedly at the dense line of soldiers which faced me, I called out, “Down with Louis Bonaparte.  Those who serve traitors are traitors!”

Those nearest to me turned their heads towards me and looked at me with a tipsy air; the others did not stir, and remained at “shoulder arms,” the peaks of their helmets over their eyes, their eyes fixed upon the ears of their horses.

In great affairs there is the immobility of statues; in petty mean affairs there is the immobility of puppets.

At the shout which I raised Arnauld turned sharply round.  He also had lowered his window, and he was leaning half out of the omnibus, with his arms extended towards the soldiers, and he shouted, “Down with the traitors!”

To see him thus with his dauntless gesture, his handsome head, pale and calm, his fervent expression, his beard and his long chestnut hair, one seemed to behold the radiant and fulminating face of an angry Christ.

The example was contagious and electrical.

“Down with the traitors!” shouted Carini and Montanelli.

“Down with the Dictator!  Down with the traitors!” repeated a gallant young man with whom we were not acquainted, and who was sitting next to Carini.

With the exception of this young man, the whole omnibus seemed seized with terror!

“Hold your tongues!” exclaimed these poor frightened people; “you will cause us all to be massacred.”  One, still more terrified, lowered the window, and began to shout to the soldiers, “Long live Prince Napoleon!  Long live the Emperor!”

There were five of us, and we overpowered this cry by our persistent protest, “Down with Louis Bonaparte!  Down with the traitors!”

The soldiers listened in gloomy silence.  A corporal turned with a threatening air towards us, and shook his sword.  The crowd looked on in bewilderment.

What passed within me at that moment?  I cannot tell!  I was in a whirlwind.  I had at the same time yielded to a calculation, finding the opportunity good, and to a burst of rage, finding the encounter insolent.

A woman cried out to us from the pavement, “You will get yourselves cut to pieces.”  I vaguely imagined that some collision was about to ensue, and that, either from the crowd or from the Army, the spark would fly out.  I hoped for a sword-cut from the soldiers or a shout of anger from the people.  In short I had obeyed rather an instinct than an idea.

But nothing came of it, neither the sword-cut nor the shout of anger.  The soldiers did not bestir themselves and the people maintained silence.  Was it too late?  Was it too soon?

The mysterious man of the Elysee had not foreseen the event of an insult to his name being thrown in the very face of the soldiers.  The soldiers had no orders.  They received them that evening.  This was seen on the morrow.