itself,
had something impossible and living about them.

What were people doing at this ball? They danced a little, made love a
little, and above all talked politics.

There were about fifty Representatives present that evening. The negro
Representative Louisy Mathieu, in white gloves, was accompanied by the
negrophile Representative Schoelcher in black gloves. People said: "O
fraternity! they have exchanged hands!"

Politicians leaning against the mantels announced the approaching
appearance of a sheet entitled the "Aristo," a reactionary paper. The
Brea affair,* which was being tried at that very moment, was discussed.
What particularly struck these grave men in this sinister affair was
that among the witnesses was an ironmonger named "Lenclume" and a
locksmith named "Laclef."

* General Brea was assassinated on June 25, 1848, while
parleying with the insurgents at the Barriere de
Fontainebleau.

Such are the trivial things men bring into the events of God.

II. GENERAL BREA'S MURDERERS. March, 1849.

The men condemned to death in the Brea affair are confined in the fort
at Vanves. There are five of them: Nourry, a poor child of seventeen
whose father and mother died insane, type of the gamin of Paris that
revolutions make a hero and riots a murderer; Daix, blind of one eye,
lame, and with only one arm, a _bon pauvre_ of the Bicetre Hospital,
who underwent the operation of trepanning three years ago, and who has
a little daughter eight years old whom he adores; Lahr, nicknamed the
Fireman, whose wife was confined the day after his condemnation,
giving life at the moment she received death; Chopart, a bookseller's
assistant, who has been mixed up in some rather discreditable pranks of
youth; and finally Vappreaux junior, who pleaded an alibi and who,
if the four others are to be believed, was not at the Barriere de
Fontainebleau at all during the three days of June.

These hapless wights are confined in a big casemate of the fort. Their
condemnation has crushed them and turned them towards God. In the
casemate are five camp beds and five rush-bottomed chairs; to this
lugubrious furniture of the dungeon an altar has been added. It was
erected at the end of the casemate opposite the door and below the
venthole through which daylight penetrates. On the altar is only a
plaster statue of the Virgin enveloped in lace. There are no tapers,
it being feared that the prisoners might set fire