he Place of the Madeleine, which was
occupied by the military. At the same time, at several important
points along the boulevards, the people were busy--men, women, and
boys--tearing up the pavements, seizing and overturning omnibuses and
carts, cutting down the trees, pitching heavy articles of furniture
out of the windows of the houses, and thus constructing barricades.

The points selected and the artistic style of structure indicated
that military genius of a high order guided the movement. Only a
small detachment of troops could be sent out from the central
position at the Tuileries. As they could not be everywhere, the
intrenchments of the populace rose in various parts of the city,
unopposed, with inconceivable rapidity, and with almost military
precision. Large bodies advanced simultaneously to the gunsmiths'
shops, to the police stations and guard-houses, to the arsenal and
powder manufactory, to the artillery depot of St. Thomas Aquinas; and
the guns, muskets, and ammunition thus seized were freely distributed
to the people. The National Guard, forty thousand strong, was
thoroughly armed. The ranks of this formidable body were filled with
the citizens of Paris, who were all in sympathy with the
insurrection. Many of them appeared in the streets even in their
uniform.

A band of armed men advanced to the Hotel de Ville, where but sixteen
soldiers were stationed on guard. The soldiers, attempting no
opposition, withdrew unmolested. A huge tri-color flag, unfurled from
the roof, announced with the peal of the tocsin that that important
post, almost an impregnable citadel in the hands of determined men,
had fallen into the possession of the people. The tidings swept the
streets like a flood, giving a new impulse to the universal
enthusiasm. A few moments after another band burst open the gates of
Notre Dame, and another tri-color flag waved in the breeze from one
of its towers; while the bells of the cathedral with their sublime
voices proclaimed to the agitated yet exultant masses the additional
triumph. It was scarcely midday, and yet four-fifths of Paris was in
the undisputed possession of the insurgents, and, as by magic, from
twenty spires and towers the tri-color flag spread its folds in
defiance to the banner of the Bourbons. More than a hundred
barricades had been erected, or were in the process of erection.
Behind them stood more than a hundred thousand well-armed, determined
men. With such rapidity an