e had
made his career by means of prisons, or rather he had made prison his
career, In 1835, he had commenced by helping thirty of the prisoners of
April to escape from Sainte-Pelagie. At that time he was affiliated to
the _Societe des Familles_. The police discovered a whole arsenal of
powder and ammunition at the house in the Rue de Lourcine, and Barbes
was condemned to prison for a year and sent to Carcassonne, where he had
relatives. When he left prison, the _Societe des Saisons_ had taken the
place of the _Societe des Familles_. With Blanqui's approval, Barbes
organized the insurrection of May 12 and 13, 1830. This time blood was
shed. In front of the Palais de Justice, the men, commanded by Barbes,
had invited Lieutenant Droulneau to let them enter. The officer replied
that he would die first. He was immediately shot, but Barbes was
sentenced to death for this. Thanks to the intervention of Lamartine
and Victor Hugo, his life was spared, but he was imprisoned at Mont
Saint-Michel until 1843, and afterwards at Nimes. On the 28th of
February, 1848, the Governor of Nimes prison informed him that he was
free. He was more surprised and embarrassed than pleased by this news.

"I was quite bewildered," he owned later on, "by this idea of leaving
prison. I looked at my prison bed, to which I had grown so accustomed. I
looked at my blanket and at my pillow and at all my belongings, hung
so carefully at the foot of my bed." He asked permission to stay there
another day. He had become accustomed to everything, and when once he
was out again, and free, he was like a man who feels ill at ease.

He took part in the affair of the 15th of May, and this is what gives
a tragic, and at the same time comic, character to the episode. Under
pretext of manifesting in favour of Poland, the National Assembly was
to be invaded. Barbes did not approve of this manifestation, and
had decided to keep out of it. Some people cannot be present at a
revolutionary scene without taking part in it, and without soon wanting
to play the chief part in it. The excitement goes to their head. Barbes
seems to have been obeying in instinct over which he had no control,
for, together with a workman named Albert, he headed the procession
which was to march from the Chamber of Deputies to the Hotel de Ville
and establish a fresh Provisional Government. He had already commenced
composing the proclamations to be thrown through the windows to the
people, after th