eless! the King has just gone! Ah! if you don't believe me, go
and see for yourself!"

This assurance calmed Frederick. The Place du Carrousel had a tranquil
aspect. The Hotel de Nantes stood there as fixed as ever; and the houses
in the rear; the dome of the Louvre in front, the long gallery of wood
at the right, and the waste plot of ground that ran unevenly as far as
the sheds of the stall-keepers were, so to speak, steeped in the grey
hues of the atmosphere, where indistinct murmurs seemed to mingle with
the fog; while, at the opposite side of the square, a stiff light,
falling through the parting of the clouds on the facade of the
Tuileries, cut out all its windows into white patches. Near the Arc de
Triomphe a dead horse lay on the ground. Behind the gratings groups
consisting of five or six persons were chatting. The doors leading into
the chateau were open, and the servants at the thresholds allowed the
people to enter.

Below stairs, in a kind of little parlour, bowls of _cafe au lait_ were
handed round. A few of those present sat down to the table and made
merry; others remained standing, and amongst the latter was a
hackney-coachman. He snatched up with both hands a glass vessel full of
powdered sugar, cast a restless glance right and left, and then began to
eat voraciously, with his nose stuck into the mouth of the vessel.

At the bottom of the great staircase a man was writing his name in a
register.

Frederick was able to recognise him by his back.

"Hallo, Hussonnet!"

"Yes, 'tis I," replied the Bohemian. "I am introducing myself at court.
This is a nice joke, isn't it?"

"Suppose we go upstairs?"

And they reached presently the Salle des Marechaux. The portraits of
those illustrious generals, save that of Bugeaud, which had been pierced
through the stomach, were all intact. They were represented leaning on
their sabres with a gun-carriage behind each of them, and in formidable
attitudes in contrast with the occasion. A large timepiece proclaimed it
was twenty minutes past one.

Suddenly the "Marseillaise" resounded. Hussonnet and Frederick bent over
the balusters. It was the people. They rushed up the stairs, shaking
with a dizzying, wave-like motion bare heads, or helmets, or red caps,
or else bayonets or human shoulders with such impetuosity that some
people disappeared every now and then in this swarming mass, which was
mounting up without a moment's pause, like a river compressed by an
eq