sion to go to the Rue de Rivoli, and I
found the streets and the garden with much fewer people in them than was
usual at that hour. There I heard a rumour that a slight disturbance had
taken place on the Boulevard des Italiens, in consequence of a refusal
of the Duc de Fitzjames, a leading Carlist, to take off his hat to the
body of Lamarque, as he stood at a balcony. I had often met M. de
Fitzjames in society, and, although a decided friend of the old regime,
I knew his tone of feeling and manners to be too good, to credit a tale
so idle. By a singular coincidence, the only time I had met with General
Lamarque in private was at a little dinner given by Madame de M----, at
which Monsieur de Fitzjames was also a guest. We were but five or six at
table, and nothing could be more amicable, or in better taste, than the
spirit of conciliation and moderation that prevailed between men so
widely separated by opinion. This was not long before Gen. Lamarque was
attacked by his final disease, and as there appeared to me to be
improbability in the rumour of the affair of the Boulevards, I quite
rightly set it down as one of the exaggerations that daily besiege our
ears. It being near six, I consequently returned home to dinner,
supposing that the day would end as so many had ended before.

We were at table, or it was about half-past six o'clock, when the drum
beat the _rappel_. At one period, scarcely a day passed that we did not
hear this summons; indeed, so frequent did it become, that I make little
doubt the government resorted to it as an expedient to strengthen
itself, by disgusting the National Guards with the frequency of the
calls; but of late, the regular weekly parades excepted, we had heard
nothing of it. A few minutes later, Francois, who had been sent to the
_porte-cochere_, returned with the intelligence that a soldier of the
National Guard had just passed it, bleeding at a wound in the head. On
receiving this information, I left the hotel and proceeded towards the
river. In the Rue du Bac, the great thoroughfare of the faubourg, I
found a few men, and most of the women, at their shop-doors, and
_portes-cocheres_, but no one could say what was going on in the more
distant quarters of the town. There were a few people on the quays and
bridges, and, here and there, a solitary National Guard was going to his
place of rendezvous. I walked rapidly through the garden, which, at that
hour, was nearly empty, as a matter of co