We then received a heavy discharge of musketry from about a hundred and fifty soldiers who forthwith disappeared down a side street.  They were the headquarters guard.  Off we tore after them, and were just in time to see the last of them go into a big house which my guide informed me was the headquarters of the military governor.  A huge court with galleries running round it, and above them on the first floor more arcades, adorned with flowers in pots and climbing plants, met our gaze when we entered.  A sharp fire poured from the first floor the instant we appeared in the courtyard.  Hesitation would be fatal.  We must get upstairs and bring those folk to their senses.  A narrow stairway was the only road.  Well, every man must own to some weakness!  When I saw that staircase, up which I should have to go first, and receive the first volley alone when I got to the top, I wavered for a moment, and waving my sword, I shouted, “Volunteers to the front!” My quartermaster, a Parisian, rushed to the staircase, and the sight brought me back to a sense of my duty.  I rushed after him.  We raced against each other, and I had the satisfaction of getting to the top a good first, followed indeed by my whole company.  There was nothing so very terrible about it after all.  At first we found ourselves in a sort of vestibule; an ill-directed fire, which wounded two of our officers only, pouring on us through the doors and windows.  Then each of us set to work on his own account.  A second boatswain, of the name of Jadot, and I threw ourselves against a door and broke it in with our shoulders.  When it gave, I was shot forward by my men pushing on behind me, and hurled into a room full of smoke and Mexican soldiers.  One of them, in a white uniform and red epaulettes (I see his straight Indian hair and wicked eye yet), was aiming at me with the barrel of his musket close to my face.  I had just time to say to myself, “I’m done for.”  But no, there was no shot, the gun fell on my feet, and I saw my gentleman roll under a sofa carrying the sword with which Penaud, my lieutenant, had run him through as quick as lightning, stuck between his ribs.

I believe I rid myself of another great big fellow next, and then, the first start having been given, there was a general rout, and I found myself in another room at the end of which I saw several officers, one a general, standing together very calmly, with their swords sheathed.  I rushed forward with the boatswain Jadot, to protect them from my men, who were somewhat excited, and the fight was over.  The name of the general, a tall fair handsome fellow, was Arista.  In later days he became President of the Mexican Republic.  He surrendered his sword to me, and I had him taken downstairs, and left him in the hands of artillery Commandant Colombel, who sent him to the fort.  As for Santa Anna, we could not find him, though his bed was still warm.  We took his epaulettes, and his commanding officer’s baton, and Jadot the boatswain, who had lost his own straw hat in the scuffle, put on his gold tipped one.