r houses bareheaded and
mingled with the crowd. A fine rain was falling. Not a carriage in the
street. At the corner of the Rue Saint Roch and Rue Saint Honore we
heard voices behind us saying, "Victor Hugo is killed."

"Not yet," said Jules Favre, continuing to smile, and pressing my arm.

They had said the same thing on the preceding day to Esquiros and to
Madier de Montjau. And this rumor, so agreeable to the Reactionaries,
had even reached my two sons, prisoners in the Conciergerie.

The stream of people driven back from the Boulevards and from the Rue
Richelieu flowed towards the Rue de la Paix. We recognized there some of
the Representatives of the Right who had been arrested on the 2d, and
who were already released. M. Buffet, an ex-minister of M. Bonaparte,
accompanied by numerous other members of the Assembly, was going towards
the Palais Royal. As he passed close by us he pronounced the name of
Louis Bonaparte in a tone of execration.

M. Buffet is a man of some importance; he is one of the three political
advisers of the Right; the two others are M. Fould and M. Mole.

In the Rue Monthabor, two steps from the Rue Saint Honore, there was
silence and peace. Not one passer-by, not a door open, not a head out of
window.

In the apartment into which we were conducted, on the third story, the
calm was not less perfect. The windows looked upon an inner courtyard.
Five or six red arm-chairs were drawn up before the fire; on the table
could be seen a few books which seemed to me works on political economy
and executive law. The Representatives, who almost immediately joined us
and who arrived in disorder, threw down at random their umbrellas and
their coats streaming with water in the corner of this peaceful room. No
one knew exactly what was happening; every one brought forward his
conjectures.

The Committee was hardly seated in an adjoining little room when our
ex-colleague, Leblond, was announced. He brought with him King the
delegate of the working-men's societies. The delegate told us that the
committee of the societies were sitting in permanent session, and had
sent him to us. According to the instructions of the Insurrectionary
Committee, they had done what they could to lengthen the struggle by
evading too decisive encounters. The greater part of the associations
had not yet given battle; nevertheless the plot was thickening. The
combat had been severe during the morning. The Association of the Rights