attended by his chaplains, to the summit of the barricade.  One of them had his hat pierced by three balls, but the archbishop himself, almost by a miracle, escaped while on the top.  He had descended three steps on the other side, when he was pierced through the loins by a shot from a window.  The insurgents, horror-struck, approached him where he fell, stanched the wound, which at once was seen to be mortal, and carried him to a neighboring hospital.  When told that he had only a few minutes to live, ‘God be praised!’ he said, ’and may He accept my life as an expiation for my omissions during my episcopacy, and as an offering for the salvation of this misguided people.’  With these words he expired.”

As soon as the archbishop’s death was known, the insurgents made proposals to capitulate, on condition of a general pardon.  This Cavaignac refused, saying that they must surrender unconditionally.  The fight therefore lasted until daybreak.  Then the insurgents capitulated, and all was over.

No one ever knew how many fell.  Six generals were killed or mortally wounded.  Ten thousand bodies were recognized and buried, and it is said that nearly as many more were thrown unclaimed into the Seine.  There were fifteen thousand prisoners, of whom three thousand died of jail-fever.  Thousands were sent to Cayenne; thousands to the galleys.  This terrible four days’ fight cost France more lives than any battle of the Empire.

The insurrection being over, and Cavaignac dictator, the next thing was for the Assembly to make a constitution.  This constitution was short-lived.  A president was to be chosen for four years, with re-election as often as might be desired.  He was to be elected by universal suffrage.  He was to have a salary of about one hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars per annum, and he was to have much the same powers as the President of the United States.

There were two principal presidential candidates,—­Prince Louis Napoleon, who had taken his seat in the Assembly; and Cavaignac, who had the power of Government on his side, and was sanguine of election.  The prince proclaimed in letters and placards his deep attachment to the Republic, and denounced as his enemies and slanderers all those who said he was not firmly resolved to maintain the constitution.

The result of the election showed Louis Napoleon to have had five and a half millions of votes; Cavaignac one and a half million; Lamartine, who six months before had been a popular idol, had nineteen thousand.

[Illustration:  LOUIS NAPOLEON. (The Prince President.)]

An early friend of Louis Napoleon, who seems to have been willing to talk freely of the playmate of her childhood, thus spoke of him to an English traveller.