had fought at
Trenton under Washington, and at Brandywine under Lafayette.

In the meantime, the municipal cavalry on the left bank had been set
in motion, and came to bar the bridge, on the right bank the dragoons
emerged from the Celestins and deployed along the Quai Morland. The men
who were dragging Lafayette suddenly caught sight of them at the corner
of the quay and shouted: "The dragoons!" The dragoons advanced at a
walk, in silence, with their pistols in their holsters, their swords in
their scabbards, their guns slung in their leather sockets, with an air
of gloomy expectation.

They halted two hundred paces from the little bridge. The carriage in
which sat Lafayette advanced to them, their ranks opened and allowed it
to pass, and then closed behind it. At that moment the dragoons and the
crowd touched. The women fled in terror. What took place during that
fatal minute? No one can say. It is the dark moment when two clouds come
together. Some declare that a blast of trumpets sounding the charge was
heard in the direction of the Arsenal others that a blow from a dagger
was given by a child to a dragoon. The fact is, that three shots were
suddenly discharged: the first killed Cholet, chief of the squadron,
the second killed an old deaf woman who was in the act of closing her
window, the third singed the shoulder of an officer; a woman screamed:
"They are beginning too soon!" and all at once, a squadron of dragoons
which had remained in the barracks up to this time, was seen to debouch
at a gallop with bared swords, through the Rue Bassompierre and the
Boulevard Bourdon, sweeping all before them.

Then all is said, the tempest is loosed, stones rain down, a fusillade
breaks forth, many precipitate themselves to the bottom of the bank, and
pass the small arm of the Seine, now filled in, the timber-yards of the
Isle Louviers, that vast citadel ready to hand, bristle with combatants,
stakes are torn up, pistol-shots fired, a barricade begun, the young men
who are thrust back pass the Austerlitz bridge with the hearse at a run,
and the municipal guard, the carabineers rush up, the dragoons ply their
swords, the crowd disperses in all directions, a rumor of war flies to
all four quarters of Paris, men shout: "To arms!" they run, tumble down,
flee, resist. Wrath spreads abroad the riot as wind spreads a fire.

CHAPTER IV--THE EBULLITIONS OF FORMER DAYS

Nothing is more extraordinary than the first breaking out