"Go, of course," answered Cavaignac.
"But if they question me—?"
"Tell the truth. If the Bonapartists want to seize our guns we will fire our last cartridges to defend them; but, if the people rise against the Luxembourg, or even against any other palace, we will march with them."
"That suits me down to the ground. I like plain speaking."
So I went to the Palais-Royal. The offices were crowded with people; one could feel the excitement running through from the centre to the outlying extremities, and, judging from the state of agitation of the extremities, the centre must have been very much excited. Oudard questioned me; that was the only reason why he had sent for me. I repeated what Cavaignac had told me, word for word. As far as I can recollect, this happened on the evening of the 20th. On the 21st I resumed my post in the rue de Tournon. The crowd was denser than ever: the rue de Tournon, the rues de Seine, des Fossés-Monsieur-le-Prince, Voltaire, the places de l'Odéon, Saint-Michel and l'École-de-Médecine, were filled to overflowing with National Guards and troops of the line. The National Guard had been made to believe that there was a plot for plundering the shops; that the people of the July Revolution, when pulled up by the appointment of the Duc d'Orléans to the Lieutenant-generalship, had vowed to be revenged; now, the bourgeois, ever ready to believe rumours of this kind, had rushed up in masses and uttered terrible threats against pillagers, who had never pillaged either on the 27th, the 28th, or the 29th, but who would have pillaged on the 30th, if the creation of the Lieutenant-generalship had not restored order just in time.
It is but fair to mention that all those excellent fellows, who were waiting there, with rifles at rest, would not have put themselves out to wait unless they had really believed that the trial would end in a sentence of capital punishment.
About two o'clock it was announced that the counsels' speeches were finished and the debates closed, and that sentence was going to be pronounced. There was an intense silence, as though each person was afraid that any sound might prevent him from hearing the great voice, that, no doubt, like that of the angel of the day of judgment, should pronounce the supreme sentence of that High Court of Justice.
Suddenly, some men rushed out of the Luxembourg and dashed down the rue de Tournon crying—
"To death! They are sentenced to death!"