ers of small wares. The absolute silence,
save when "Mourir pour la Patrie" sounded hoarsely in the distance, was
as strange as it was unexpected. I had always connected an insurrection
with noise. It was rumored that Guizot the Unpopular had been dismissed,
and that Count Mole, a man of half measures, had been called to the
king's councils. The affair looked to me as if it were going to die out
for want of fuel. But I was mistaken: the blouses, who had not had one
gun to a hundred the day before, had been all night arming themselves by
domiciliary requisitions. The national guard was not believed to be
firm.

The night before, an hour after I had parted with Miss Hermione, I had
made an attempt to see her and Mrs. Leare, without any success. Not even
bribery would induce the concierge to let me in. His orders were
peremptory: "_Pas un seul, monsieur, personne_"--madame received nobody.

Early on Wednesday morning I again presented myself: the ladies were not
visible. Later in the day I called again, and was again refused. But
several times Amy had seen Hermione at a window, and they had made signs
across the street to one another. I began to understand that Mrs. Leare
was overwhelmed by the responsibility she had incurred in opening her
salon to men whom she now perceived to have been conspirators, and that
she was obstinately determined not to compromise herself further by
giving admittance to any one.

Our bonne had been able to ascertain from the concierge of the Leare
house that madame was hysterical, and could hardly be controlled by
mademoiselle.

I was in the streets till five o'clock on Wednesday, when, concluding
all was over, I came home, intending to make another effort to see the
Leares, and if possible to take Miss Hermione, with Ellen and Laetitia,
to view the debris of the two days' fight--to let them get their first
glimpse of real war in the Place de la Concorde, where a regiment was
littering down its horses for the night, and a peep into the closed
gardens of the Tuileries.

When I got up to our rooms I found my sisters at a window overlooking
the courtyard of Mrs. Leare's hotel, and they all cried out with one
voice, "Mrs. Leare's carriage is just ready to drive away."

I looked. A travelling-equipage stood in the courtyard. On it the
concierge was hoisting trunks, and into it was being heaped a
promiscuous variety of knick-knackery and wearing apparel. A country
postilion--who, but for his d