of the momentous events of
which he had a distinct presentiment. Peace was concluded definitely at
last, the Assembly was to commence its regular sessions at Versailles
on the 20th of the month; and yet for him nothing was concluded: he felt
that they were ere long to witness the beginning of a dreadful drama of
atonement. On the 18th of March, as he was about to leave his room,
he received a letter from Henriette urging him to come and join her at
Remilly, coupled with a playful threat that she would come and carry him
off with her if he delayed too long to afford her that great pleasure.
Then she went on to speak of Jean, concerning whose affairs she was
extremely anxious; she told how, after leaving her late in December to
join the Army of the North, he had been seized with a low fever that had
kept him long a prisoner in a Belgian hospital, and only the preceding
week he had written her that he was about to start for Paris,
notwithstanding his enfeebled condition, where he was determined to seek
active service once again. Henriette closed her letter by begging her
brother to give her a faithful account of how matters were with Jean as
soon as he should have seen him. Maurice laid the open letter before
him on the table and sank into a confused revery. Henriette, Jean; his
sister whom he loved so fondly, his brother in suffering and privation;
how absent from his daily thoughts had those dear ones been since the
tempest had been raging in his bosom! He aroused himself, however, and
as his sister advised him that she had been unable to give Jean the
number of the house in the Rue des Orties, promised himself to go that
very day to the office where the regimental records were kept and hunt
up his friend. But he had barely got beyond his door and was crossing
the Rue Saint-Honore when he encountered two fellow-soldiers of his
battalion, who gave him an account of what had happened that morning and
during the night before at Montmartre, and the three men started off on
a run toward the scene of the disturbance.

Ah, that day of the 18th of March, the elation and enthusiasm that it
aroused in Maurice! In after days he could never remember clearly what
he said and did. First he beheld himself dimly, as through a veil
of mist, convulsed with rage at the recital of how the troops had
attempted, in the darkness and quiet that precedes the dawn, to disarm
Paris by seizing the guns on Montmartre heights. It was evident that
Thi