ay, 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.

Since that time I had only seen him once, on the 26th August, 1819, on
the day when I held the corner of Balzac's pall. The funeral possession
was going to Pere la Chaise. Auguste's shop was on the way. All the
streets through which the procession passed were crowded. Auguste was at
his door with his young wife and two or three workmen. As I passed he
greeted me.

It was this remembrance which came back to my mind as I descended the
lonely streets behind my house; in the presence of the 2d of December I
thought of him. I thought that he might give me information about the
Faubourg St. A