I was awakened, as on the 26th, by Achille Comte.
"Well?" I asked, rubbing my eyes.
"Oh, it is going ahead!" he said. "The Quartier des Écoles is in a state of open insurrection, but the students are furious."
"Against whom?"
"Against the principal leaders—Laffitte, Casimir Périer and La Fayette.... They called upon these persons yesterday: one told them to keep quiet, whilst others did not even see them.... But Barthélemy and Méry will give you full details; they were there, with their pockets full of gunpowder which they had bought of a grocer."
I dressed, took a carriage to go and call on my mother and found her as calm as if nothing extraordinary was happening in Paris. I had given orders that she should be kept in ignorance, and they had been carefully executed. When I left my mother, I drove to Godefroy Cavaignac, who lived in the rue de Sèvres. He had gone out, but I was told I should find him either at Joubert's the bookseller's, in the passage Dauphine, or at Charles Teste's, at la Petite-Jacobinière, in the place de la Bourse.
Joubert, who was afterwards aide-de-camp to La Fayette, I believe lieutenant-colonel, was a former Carbonaro and a friend of Carrel; condemned to death as the latter was, after the affair of Béfort, he had escaped from the prisons of Perpignan by the help of a nun and two of his friends, Fabre and Corbière.
Charles Teste, whom we all knew well, had built a bookshop in the place de la Bourse, which was dubbed with the expressive name of Petite-Jacobinière, because of the opinions of those who frequented it. Charles Teste was one of the worthiest and noblest characters it was possible to meet with. Being poor, he had quarrelled with his richer brothers. During the reign of Louis-Philippe he would not take up any profession, and goodness knows how he managed to live! When his brother was condemned by the Court of Peers, he placed himself entirely at his disposition, and became his support and comfort and strength. Then, after the Revolution of 1848, all his old friends came in to power, but he declined the posts that were offered to him, and the only favour he asked was that his brother might be removed from prison to a sanatorium. Charles Teste died, I think, eighteen months or two years ago; when he drew his last breath France lost one of her greatest citizens.
I drove first to the passage Dauphine, but Cavaignac had been there and had gone out with Bastide, and it was thought that both had gone to la Petite-Jacobinière. So I dismissed my cab, as I had a call to make at No. 7 rue de l'Université. Here I had drawn no preventive cordon, as in the case of my mother, and everything was known. I promised to regard things from a spectator's standpoint and not to mix myself up in the disturbance: on those conditions, I was allowed leave.
There was a large gathering in the rue de Beaune, at the house of a chemist whose name was Robinet; it was composed of electors and members of the National Guard of the 10th and 11th Arrondissement. All they wanted was to start out on the warpath, but no one possessed arms.