faced everywhere; he
slept, like the spider surrounded by his webs.

If some events and some revolutions had taken place during these two
years, it must have been in hearts; it must have been some of those
occult changes from which, in monarchies without firm foundation,
terrible overthrows and long and bloody dissensions arise.

To enlighten ourselves, let us glance at the old black building of the
unfinished Louvre, and listen to the conversation of those who inhabited
it and those who surrounded it.

It was the month of December; a rigorous winter had afflicted Paris,
where the misery and inquietude of the people were extreme. However,
curiosity was still alive, and they were eager for the spectacles given
by the court. Their poverty weighed less heavily upon them while they
contemplated the agitations of the rich. Their tears were less bitter
on beholding the struggles of power; and the blood of the nobles which
reddened their streets, and seemed the only blood worthy of being shed,
made them bless their own obscurity. Already had tumultuous scenes and
conspicuous assassinations proved the monarch's weakness, the absence
and approaching end of the minister, and, as a kind of prologue to the
bloody comedy of the Fronde, sharpened the malice and even fired the
passions of the Parisians. This confusion was not displeasing to them.
Indifferent to the causes of the quarrels which were abstruse for them,
they were not so with regard to individuals, and already began to
regard the party chiefs with affection or hatred, not on account of the
interest which they supposed them to take in the welfare of their class,
but simply because as actors they pleased or displeased.

One night, especially, pistol and gun-shots had been heard frequently in
the city; the numerous patrols of the Swiss and the body-guards had even
been attacked, and had met with some barricades in the tortuous streets
of the Ile Notre-Dame; carts chained to the posts, and laden with
barrels, prevented the cavaliers from advancing, and some musket-shots
had wounded several men and horses. However, the town still slept,
except the quarter which surrounded the Louvre, which was at this
time inhabited by the Queen and M. le Duc d'Orleans. There everything
announced a nocturnal expedition of a very serious nature.

It was two o'clock in the morning. It was freezing, and the darkness
was intense, when a numerous assemblage stopped upon the quay, which was
the