"General," replied Étienne, "I have been wearing a tricolour in my buttonhole since yesterday, and in my hat since this morning. There they are and there they will remain!"
"Obstinate fellow!" murmured the general, as he went on his way.
They suggested he should have a horse from Pellier's livery stables, but he refused. So it took nearly an hour and a half to go from the rue d'Artois to the Hôtel de Ville. He reached it about half-past three.
But I must give the history of the Hôtel de Ville from eight that morning, when it had been definitely taken by the people, to the moment when General La Fayette came to occupy it at half-past three. About seven in the morning, the people noticed that the Hôtel had been evacuated by the troops. The news was instantly carried to the National offices. It was important that possession should be taken of it, so Baude and Étienne Arago went. At nine o'clock they were installed inside. From that very moment, and visionary as it was, the Provisional Government was installed in office. A man had risen up who did not shrink before the terrible responsibility which made so many people hang back. That man was Baude. He constituted himself Secretary of a non-existent Government. He issued numberless orders, proclamations and decrees, which he signed
"BAUDE, Secretary to the Provisional Government."
We said that he had entered the Hôtel de Ville at nine o'clock. By eleven, the municipal safe was examined and found to contain five million francs. At eleven o'clock, the master bakers were summoned, and they declared on their own responsibility that Paris was provisioned for a month. Moreover, at eleven o'clock, commissions were set up in all the twelve arrondissements of Paris, with instructions to put themselves into communication with the Hôtel de Ville. Five or six devoted patriots rallied round Baude and were sufficient for his working staff. Étienne Arago was one of these. Reports, orders, decrees and proclamations were placed between the barrel and the ramrod of Arago's rifle and carried to the National offices. He went by way of the rue de la Vannerie, the market of the Innocents, and the rue Montmartre. From ten that morning not a single obstacle had impeded his course. In accordance with Marshal Marmont's order the whole of the troops had concentrated round the Tuileries.
While Étienne was carrying off the proclamation announcing the downfall of the Bourbons, signed "BAUDE, Secretary of the Provisional Government," he met a former actor named Charlet, in the market of the Innocents, who was walking in front of an immense crowd of people which filled up the whole of the square. The two principal personages in that crowd, those who appeared to be conducting it or to be conducted by it, were a man dressed as a captain, and another in the uniform of a general. The man in captain's uniform was Évariste Dumoulin, the editor of the Constitutionnel, to whom I have referred apropos of Madame Valmonzey and Christine. The man in the general's uniform was General Dubourg. Nobody knew who General Dubourg was or where he sprang from, or whether he had been to an old-clothes shop and either borrowed or hired or bought his general's uniform. But the epaulettes were wanting, and this was too important an accessory to be neglected. Charlet, the actor, went and fetched a pair of epaulettes from the property stores of the Opéra-Comique and brought them to the general. And, thus complete, he set off at the head of his procession.
"What is all this crowd? Étienne asked of Charlet.
"It is General Dubourg's procession starting for the Hôtel de Ville."