I went home to change my shirt (pardon this detail, it will be seen, later, that it was not without importance in my story), and also to renew my stock of powder and bullets. But I had not had time to take off my jacket before I heard a great uproar in the street outside. It was made by Charras and his troop returning from the barracks in the rue de Babylone. There had been a frightful slaughter: after half an hour's siege, they had been obliged to set fire to the barracks, to dislodge the Swiss Guard. They carried the red coats of the vanquished enemy at the point of their bayonets as victorious trophies. Charras (he must remember the circumstance well enough to-day, for he is not one of those who forget) wore a sleeve from some Swiss Guard's coat in place of the cockade, which was fastened to the top of his three-cornered hat and fell coquettishly over his shoulder. They were all marching upon the Tuileries, with drums to the fore.
At the same moment, the cries increased, coming from the direction of the château. I turned my eyes in the direction whence they came and, from my window, which looked out on the rue du Bac, I saw thousands of letters and papers fluttering into the Tuileries garden. It looked as though all the wood pigeons about the place were taking flight. It was the correspondence of Napoleon, of Louis XVIII. and of Charles X. being scattered to the winds. The Tuileries had been taken. Although I was not Crillon, I was seized with a sudden desire to go and hang myself. Now, a man in that state of mind does not think it worth while changing his shirt. So I replaced my jacket and rushed downstairs. I rejoined the tail of the column just as it entered the Tuileries by the gate at the water-side. On the pavilion in the centre, the Tricolour had replaced the White standard. Joubert, the patriot of the Dauphine passage, had planted it on the roof and had then fainted away, from fatigue or joy, or probably both combined. The gates of the Carrousel had been forced open and people were rushing in by every door, among them hundreds of women: where did they spring from? No one who witnessed the spectacle will ever forget it. One student of the École polytechnique, named Baduel, was being drawn in triumph on a cannon. Like Achilles, he had been wounded in the heel, but, in his case, by grapeshot, and not by a poisoned arrow. Neither did he die, although he expected he should. Had he lost his life on that occasion it would not have been from his wounds, but from brain-fever, consequent on fatigue, heat and the exhaustion he had felt during the triumph they had compelled him to submit to, in spite of his remonstrances, by reason of the high courage he had shown. Another student, with a bullet through his chest, was lying on the staircase: they took him up in their arms, carried him to the first storey and laid him upon the throne embroidered with fleurs de lys, where over ten thousand of the populace seated themselves in turn, or several at a time, throughout that day. Through the windows that looked out on the garden, one could see the tail end of a regiment of Lancers, as they disappeared under the great trees. A cab was trying to catch them up; the horse was galloping fast, for, no doubt, the driver wanted to put himself under protection of the regiment.
The Tuileries was crowded: people were recognising their friends among the crowd and embracing and questioning one another—
"Where is such and such a person?"
"He is over there!"
"Where?"
"There!"
Another was wounded—or dead!
And each made a gesture as funeral oration, signifying, "It is a pity! but, bless me, he died on a grand day!"