"Who has done that?"
"How should I know?... Some monsieur with a plumed hat, a large sabre and a long scarf."
This "monsieur" was Colonel Dumoulin, who reappeared at every Revolution in exactly the same plumed hat, sabre and scarf, till one began to think he was the cause of all the misfortune.
Odilon Barrot shrugged his shoulders.
"You," he said, "you will belong to the Commune of Paris with us...."
And in a whisper he added—
"And yet!"
Only one who, like myself, was leaning over the back of his arm-chair, could have caught these last two words.
I could see from my position another secretary, who had just come and taken his place opposite, as a rival power. It was M. Hippolyte Bonnelier, La Fayette's secretary; he was, indeed, the counterpart to Odilon Barrot, secretary of the Municipal Commission. I shall never forget how peculiarly M. Hippolyte Bonnelier was accoutred. He wore his powder-horn slung round him on a red ribbon. In his belt he had stuck a tiny poniard of four inches in length. Did he load his poniard with the powder-horn or did he fill his powder-flask with his poniard? It was a problem I was never able to solve.
"I have felled eighteen trees along the boulevards!" he said to Étienne Arago.