"I hope so, Monsieur Mazue!"
With the help of two scene-shifters, Étienne closed the grille, in spite of the efforts of the police officers; then, leaving by the stage door, he began the work of closing the other theatres—an act that had an immense influence upon that evening's proceedings and upon those of the next day.
All these details were related to us behind the carefully closed doors of the café Gobillard. We were there to the number of three or four and, as we had been rushing about the whole day, we were dying with hunger. We ordered supper. The topic of our conversation can easily be guessed. Some said that the agitation of the hour was of not more significance than that of 1827, and that the riot had not strength to rise to the proportions of a revolution, but would fail in like manner. Others, and I among them, believed, on the contrary, that we were but at the prologue of the comedy and that the morrow would show a different state of things altogether. We were in the full flow of this discussion when the sound of firing startled us and made us shudder. It was fired in the square. Almost immediately there was a cry of "To arms!" followed by a noise like that of a hand-to-hand combat.
"You see," I said, "the drama begins!"
It was now twenty minutes to ten by the café clock. We ran upstairs to the first floor to look out of the windows. The guard-house had been surprised, surrounded and attacked by a score of men. A struggle was proceeding in the darkness, of which we could not make out any details—nothing beyond a confused mass. The soldiers were defeated and disarmed. Their guns, cartridge-pouches and swords had been taken from them and they were sent away by the rue Joquelet; then some fifteen were detached from the main body and picked up the corpse of the woman, which still lay on the theatre steps, placed it on a litter and went away down the rue des Filles-Saint-Thomas crying, "Vengeance!" Three or four who were provided with a torch remained behind the rest and, with this torch, lighted a bonfire of straw in the middle of the guard-house; then they kicked down and broke up the planks it was made of and let them fall into the bonfire. Of course, the planks ignited very rapidly, and instantly the barrack was one vast blazing mass; the three or four laggards left it to its fate and rejoined their companions. The fire threw a lurid illumination over the square and burned half the night without anyone attempting to extinguish it. We went down and finished our supper, our thoughts very full of what we had just witnessed. We separated towards midnight, and I took the rue Vivienne; the Perron passage being closed, I went along the rue Neuve-des-Petits-Champs and the rue de Richelieu. In the rue de l'Échelle, moving about through the darkness, were shadows which, when I approached, cried, "Qui vive?" I replied, "A friend!" and walked straight on. It was a barricade that was being silently raised, as though built by some spirits of the night. I shook hands with several of these nocturnal workmen and gained the Carrousel. Behind the château gates I could see two or three hundred men camped in the court of the Tuileries. I thought it must have been almost the same as this on the night of the 9th to 10th of August 1790. I tried to peep through the gates, but a sentinel cried "Keep off!" and I went on my way. On the quays everything was resuming its normal appearance. I reached the rue de l'Université without having met a single person either upon the Pont Royal or in the rue du Bac. As soon as I reached my lodgings, I opened my window and listened: Paris seemed silent and deserted; but this tranquillity was but superficial, one felt that the solitude was peopled and the silence alive!
[CHAPTER V]
The morning of the 27th—Joubert—Charles Teste—La Petite-Jacobinière—Chemist Robinet—The arms used in Sergent Mathieu—Pillage of an armourer's stores—The three Royal Guards—A tall and fair young man—Oudard's fears