The manner of their reception at Laffitte's did not encourage them to pay the other calls they had planned to make: they agreed to call next day on La Fayette and Casimir Périer, but in the meanwhile they would return to the rue des Fossés-du-Temple. They therefore went back to the Hôtel Fresnoy and accommodated themselves as best they could on mattresses, on chairs, or on the floor. Next day, at dawn, they went to a professor of mathematics, named Martelet, who coached for the École examinations. M. Martelet lived at No. 16 rue des Fossés-du-Temple. They wanted to procure themselves civilian's dress—the king's highway not being safe in open daylight for the students who wore the École uniform. The five friends found all, they required at M. Martelet's house. Then, as they feared that if they called upon La Fayette too early, the same thing would happen as when they called too late at Laffitte's, they set to work to build a barricade in order to pass the time of waiting.
A wigmaker was busy in a house opposite that of M. Martelet, curling and powdering a wig: the young men invited him to join them; but, whether the wigmaker's political opinions differed from the makers of the barricade, or whether he was too much engrossed in his art and thought his time was better employed in powdering and curling wigs, he refused. By chance the barricade and the wig were both finished at the same moment. As there was nobody to guard the barricade, they took a model of a head with its pedestal from the wigmaker's shop, placed it behind the paving-stones, dressed it up in the freshly powdered and curled wig, rammed a three-cornered hat jauntily on the top and confided the protection of the barricade, to the mannikin, forbidding the wigmaker under pain of death to dare to make any change in the strategic arrangements. After which they directed their course to La Fayette's dwelling-place. La Fayette was not at home. The young people left their names with the concierge, and were about to resume their Odyssey by going to knock at the door of Casimir Périer. But Charras thought two fruitless attempts were enough, and left his comrades to fulfil their third attempt by themselves, which proved as barren as the first two. He sought out Carrel to inquire where fighting was taking place. But nobody seemed to know. There was a general idea that there was fighting going on near the Hôtel de Ville, and, at certain moments, the great bell of Notre-Dame could be heard ringing. As Charras had no arms he was able to take a direct course by the Palais-Royal and the Pont des Arts or by the Pont Neuf; whilst I, who had my gun, was obliged to retrace my steps the way I had come, by the faubourg Saint-Germain, the place de la Révolution and the rue de Lille. Charras went his way and I mine. We shall find Charras again later. Carrell went to the Petite-Jacobinière and I went back again into the streets.
The spirit of hatred was still spreading: people were no longer satisfied with effacing the fleurs de lys from the signboards, they now dragged them in the gutters.
I called at Hiraux's for a few minutes (the reader will recall the son of my old violin master, who kept and still keeps the café de la Porte Saint-Honoré). I went in there first of all to see him, and secondly, because there seemed a great agitation going on inside his house. It was caused by a piece of news which was being spread abroad and which exasperated people. It was said that the Duc de Raguse had offered his services to the king, to take command of the armed forces in Paris. If this news sounded odd to the world at large, it surprised me still more: only two days before, had I not heard the Duc de Raguse, at the Academy deploring the Ordinances and asking François Arago not to speak? And, as a matter of fact, he had had no thought of offering his services for the post until Marshal Marmont, who was in a state of despair, had received that very morning, from the Prince de Polignac, the order appointing him to the command of the first military division. He had been upon the point of refusing, but his evil genius had prevented him from doing so. There are men predestined to do fatal acts! This news probably threw five hundred more combatants into the streets.
When I reached the Pont de la Révolution, I stopped short in stupefaction to rub my eyes, for I thought they must have deceived me: the tricolour was floating from Notre-Dame! I must confess that I experienced a strange feeling of emotion at the sight of that flag, which I had not seen since 1815 and which recalled so many noble memories of those Revolutionary times and so many glorious recollections of the Imperial rule. I leant against the parapet with outstretched arms and my eyes filled with tears, rivetted upon the sight.
From la Grève side a lively fusillade burst forth, the smoke rising in dense clouds. The sight of my gun brought a dozen people round me. Two or three were armed with guns, others had pistols or swords.
"Will you lead us?" they said. "Will you be our chief?"
"Indeed I will!" I replied. "Come along."
We went across the Pont de la Révolution and we took our way through the rue de Lille, to avoid the Orsay barracks, which commanded the quay. The drums of the National Guard were beginning to beat the rappel and, our little company forming a nucleus, I had fifty men round me, with two drums and a banner, by the time I reached the rue du Bac. As I passed my rooms, I wished to go upstairs to fetch some money, as I had gone out in the morning without troubling to look to see what I had upon me, and I found I had only fifteen francs; but the landlord had come and had given the porter orders not to admit me. My conduct that morning had given rise to scandal: I had, myself, with nineteen others, disarmed three soldiers of the Royal Guard, and, with nine others, I had made three barricades; finally, as they evidently thought I was so rich that they could risk lending me something, they added to the charges against me the murder of the gendarme by Arago and Gauja. My troop made me the same offer that Charras had made to his comrades, the night before; they offered to break in the door, but I was fond of my lodgings, they were very comfortable and I had not any desire that my landlord should turn me out, so I restrained the enthusiastic zeal of my men.
We resumed our journey along the rue de l'Université. At that moment, I had nearly thirty men with me who were armed with rifles; when we got to the top of the rue Jacob it occurred to me to ask them if they had ammunition. They had not ten cartridges between them; but this fact had not prevented their marching to face fire with that naïve and sublime self-confidence which characterises the people of Paris during periods of insurrection.