"Darnault, have you any of your men here?"
"Yes, I think so," said Darnault; "there is Guérin."
"Send him to fetch some clothes from Dumas's."
"Give me a note," said Darnault to me.
"Lend me your pencil."
I wrote a few pencil lines on a scrap of paper, and he ran off. A quarter of an hour later, Guérin returned safely. For that matter, the road was perfectly cleared. I rapidly dressed myself in my ordinary clothes, and put my uniform under the care of Darnault—not wishing to entrust it to Georges, who would certainly have had it burnt—and I reached M. Laffitte's house by the faubourg Saint-Martin, the passage de l'Industrie, the rue d'Enghien and the rue Bergère. I did not get there till seven in the evening. La Fayette came to it by the boulevard. It was here he related to me the anecdote about the river. We went into Laffitte's house together, which I had not entered since the month of July 1830. The news that from all sides of Paris had reached this centre, of opposition, almost of insurrection, was as follows:—
On the right bank, they were masters of the Arsenal, of la Galiote guardhouse, of that of the Château-d'Eau and of the Mairie of the 8th Arrondissement; the Republicans had control of the Marais, the firearms factory at Popin court had been carried by assault, and twelve hundred rifles were given up to them; they had got to the place des Victories, and were preparing to attack the Bank and the Hôtel des Postes. But the rue Saint-Martin and its neighbouring streets was where the insurrection was concentrated, and the whole of that quarter was busy transforming itself into an impregnable fortress. The troop, still very disturbed by the events of 1830, did not know with whom it ought to side; should it stand by the Government, or should it turn to the People?—1830 pointed to the latter course.
With regard to the National Guard, the appearance of the man with the red flag had flung it into a state of consternation. It saw nothing in the insurrection of 5 June and the shouts of "Vive la République!" but a return to the Terror; it rallied rather for defence than for attack, and it was said that a whole battalion, massed on the pont Notre-Dame, had opened way to let eight insurgents pass through. So the Government, aware that the troops would do nothing except in concert with the Garde Nationale, had concentrated the control of all the military forces in the Capital in the hands of Maréchal Lobau. It was at this moment, when all this news was being bandied about, that we entered M. Laffitte's salon. The sight of General La Fayette produced an outcry, and people rose and went up to him.
"Well, general," they all called from all quarters, "what have you been doing?"
"Messieurs," he said, "brave young fellows came to my house and appealed to my patriotism."