I made Madame de la R——­ a thousand apologies, which she received with perfect kindness, and the charming woman profited by the incident to go and caress a pretty little girl of two years old who was sleeping at the end of the room in her cot, and the child whom she kissed caused her to forgive the refugee who had awakened her.

While chatting M. de la R——­ lighted a capital fire in the grate, and his wife, with a pillow and cushions, a hooded cloak belonging to him, and a pelisse belonging to herself, improvised opposite the fire a bed on a sofa, somewhat short, and which we lengthened by means of an arm-chair.

During the deliberation in the Rue Popincourt, at which I had just presided, Baudin had lent me his pencil to jot down some names.  I still had this pencil with me.  I made use of it to write a letter to my wife, which Madame de la R——­ undertook to convey herself to Madame Victor Hugo the next day.  While emptying my pockets I found a box for the “Italiens,” which I offered to Madame de la R——.  On that evening (Tuesday, December 2d) they were to play Hernani.

I looked at that cot, these two handsome, happy young people, and at myself, my disordered hair and clothes, my boots covered with mud, gloomy thoughts in my mind, and I felt like an owl in a nest of nightingales.

A few moments afterwards M. and Madame de la R——­ had disappeared into their bedroom, and the half-opened curtain was closed.  I stretched myself, fully dressed as I was, upon the sofa, and this gentle nest disturbed by me subsided into its graceful silence.

One can sleep on the eve of a battle between two armies, but on the eve of a battle between citizens there can be no sleep.  I counted each hour as it sounded from a neighboring church; throughout the night there passed down the street, which was beneath the windows of the room where I was lying, carriages which were fleeing from Paris.  They succeeded each other rapidly and hurriedly, one might have imagined it was the exit from a ball.  Not being able to sleep, I got up.  I had slightly parted the muslin curtains of a window, and I tried to look outside; the darkness was complete.  No stars, clouds were flying by with the turbulent violence of a winter night.  A melancholy wind howled.  This wind of clouds resembled the wind of events.

I watched the sleeping baby.  I waited for dawn.  It came.  M. de la R——­ had explained at my request in what manner I could go out without disturbing any one.  I kissed the child’s forehead, and left the room.  I went downstairs, closing the doors behind me as gently as I could, so not to wake Madame de la R——.  I opened the iron door and went out into the street.  It was deserted, the shops were still shut, and a milkwoman, with her donkey by her side, was quietly arranging her cans on the pavement.

I have not seen M. de la R——­ again.  I learned since that he wrote to me in my exile, and that his letter was intercepted.  He has, I believe, quitted France.  May this touching page convey to him my kind remembrances.