et-mould, a wooden punch for the preparation of
cartridges, a wooden bowl, in which there were grains of hunting-powder,
and a little cast-iron pot whose interior presented evident traces of
melted lead.

Police agents, making their way suddenly and unexpectedly at five
o'clock in the morning, into the dwelling of a certain Pardon, who
was afterwards a member of the Barricade-Merry section and got himself
killed in the insurrection of April, 1834, found him standing near his
bed, and holding in his hand some cartridges which he was in the act of
preparing.

Towards the hour when workingmen repose, two men were seen to meet
between the Barriere Picpus and the Barriere Charenton in a little lane
between two walls, near a wine-shop, in front of which there was a "Jeu
de Siam."[33] One drew a pistol from beneath his blouse and handed it to
the other. As he was handing it to him, he noticed that the perspiration
of his chest had made the powder damp. He primed the pistol and added
more powder to what was already in the pan. Then the two men parted.

A certain Gallais, afterwards killed in the Rue Beaubourg in the affair
of April, boasted of having in his house seven hundred cartridges and
twenty-four flints.

The government one day received a warning that arms and two hundred
thousand cartridges had just been distributed in the faubourg. On
the following week thirty thousand cartridges were distributed. The
remarkable point about it was, that the police were not able to seize a
single one.

An intercepted letter read: "The day is not far distant when, within
four hours by the clock, eighty thousand patriots will be under arms."

All this fermentation was public, one might almost say tranquil. The
approaching insurrection was preparing its storm calmly in the face of
the government. No singularity was lacking to this still subterranean
crisis, which was already perceptible. The bourgeois talked peaceably to
the working-classes of what was in preparation. They said: "How is the
rising coming along?" in the same tone in which they would have said:
"How is your wife?"

A furniture-dealer, of the Rue Moreau, inquired: "Well, when are you
going to make the attack?"

Another shop-keeper said:--

"The attack will be made soon."

"I know it. A month ago, there were fifteen thousand of you, now there
are twenty-five thousand." He offered his gun, and a neighbor offered a
small pistol which he was willing to sell for seven