In another moment the regiment broke into a gallop, and the omnibus resumed its journey.  As the cuirassiers filed past us Arnauld (de l’Ariege), still leaning out of the vehicle, continued to shout in their ears, for as I have just said, their horses touched us, “Down with the Dictator!  Down with the traitors!”

We alighted in the Rue Lafitte.  Carini, Montanelli, and Arnauld left me, and I went on alone towards the Rue de la Tour d’Auvergne.  Night was coming on.  As I turned the corner of the street a man passed close by me.  By the light of a street lamp I recognized a workman at a neighboring tannery, and he said to me in a low tone, and quickly, “Do not return home.  The police surround your house.”

I went back again towards the Boulevard, through the streets laid out, but not then built, which make a Y under my windows behind my house.  Not being able to embrace my wife and daughter, I thought over what I could do during the moments which remained to me.  A remembrance came into my mind.

CHAPTER XVII.

THE REBOUND OF THE 24TH JUNE, 1848, ON THE 2D DECEMBER, 1851

On Sunday, 26th June, 1848, that four days’ combat, that gigantic combat so formidable and so heroic on both sides, still continued, but the insurrection had been overcome nearly everywhere, and was restricted to the Faubourg St. Antoine.  Four men who had been amongst the most dauntless defenders of the barricades of the Rue Pont-aux-Choux, of the Rue St. Claude, and of the Rue St. Louis in the Marais, escaped after the barricades had been taken, and found safe refuge in a house, No. 12, Rue St. Anastase.  They were concealed in an attic.  The National Guards and the Mobile Guards were hunting for them, in order to shoot them.  I was told of this.  I was one of the sixty Representatives sent by the Constituent Assembly into the middle of the conflict, charged with the task of everywhere preceding the attacking column, of carrying, even at the peril of their lives, words of peace to the barricades, to prevent the shedding of blood, and to stop the civil war.  I went into the Rue St. Anastase, and I saved the lives of those four men.

Amongst those men there was a poor workman of the Rue de Charonne, whose wife was being confined at that very moment, and who was weeping.  One could understand, when hearing his sobs and seeing his rags, how he had cleared with a single bound these three steps—­poverty, despair, rebellion.  Their chief was a young man, pale and fair, with high cheek bones, intelligent brow, and an earnest and resolute countenance.  As soon as I set him free, and told him my name, he also wept.  He said to me, “When I think that an hour ago I knew that you were facing us, and that I wished that the barrel of my gun had eyes to see and kill you!” He added, “In the times in which we live we do not know what may happen.  If ever you need me, for whatever purpose, come.”  His name was Auguste, and he was a wine-seller in the Rue de la Roquette.