g in choosing you, under the terms of the Constitution, in one
of the categories from which the Upper House was recruited, but honoured
the peerage and also honoured himself."

"I thank you," said I, "but you look at things from the outside; I
consider them in my conscience."

We were interrupted by the noise of a prolonged fusillade which broke
out suddenly on the square. A bullet smashed a window-pane above our
heads.

"What is the matter now?" exclaimed Lamartine in sorrowful tones.

M. Armand Marrast and M. Marie went out to see what was going on.

"Ah! my friend," continued Lamartine, "how heavy is this revolutionary
power to bear! One has to assume such weighty and such sudden
responsibilities before one's conscience and in presence of history! I
do not know how I have been living during the past ten days. Yesterday I
had a few grey hairs; to-morrow they will be white."

"Yes, but you are doing your duty as a man of genius grandly," I
commented.

In a few minutes M. Armand Marrast returned.

"It was not against us," he said. "How the lamentable affray came about
could not be explained to me. There was a collision, the rifles went
off, why? Was it a misunderstanding, was it a quarrel between Socialists
and Republicans? No one knows."

"Are there any wounded?"

"Yes, and dead, too."

A gloomy silence followed. I rose. "You have no doubt some measures to
take?" I said.

"What measures?" answered Lamartine. "This morning we resolved to decree
what you have already been able to do on a small scale in your quarter:
the organization of the citizen's National Guard--every Frenchman a
soldier as well as a voter. But time is required, and meanwhile--"
he pointed to the waves and eddies of heads surging on the square
outside--"look, it is the sea!"

A boy wearing an apron entered and spoke to him in low tones.

"Ah! very good!" said Lamartine, "it is my luncheon. Will you share it
with me, Hugo?"

"Thanks, I have already lunched."

"I haven't and I am dying of hunger. At least come and look on at the
feast; I will let you go, afterwards."

He showed me into a room that gave on to an interior court-yard. A
gentle faced young man who was writing at a table rose and was about to
withdraw. He was the young workman whom Louis Blanc had had attached to
the Provisional Government.

"Stay where you are, Albert," said Lamartine, "I have nothing of a
private nature to say to Victor Hugo."

We saluted each oth