Night had fallen. Jean Marot was cautiously let out of a side door.
The Ministry had also fallen.
Hoarse-lunged venders of the evening papers announced the fact in continuous cries. Travel had been resumed in the Rue Royale. Here and there the shops began to take in their shutters and resume business. Timid shopkeepers came out on the walk and discussed the situation with each other.
The ministerial journals sold by wholesale. The angry manifestants burned them in the streets. Which rendered the camelots more insistent and obnoxious with fresh bundles to be sold and destroyed in the same way.
Jean Marot, refreshed by rest and food, lingered a moment at Rue St. Honoré, uncertain whether to return to his rooms or join a mob of patriots howling the Marseillaise in front of the Café de Londres.
"Enough," he finally concluded, and turned up towards the Rue Boissy d'Anglais.
There were evidences of a fierce struggle in the narrow but aristocratic faubourg. Usually a blaze of light at this hour, it was closed from street to street and practically deserted. Scared milliners and dress-makers and fashionable jewellers peered out from upper windows, still afraid to open up. Fragments of broken canes, battered hats, and torn vestments told an eloquent story of political differences.
"We certainly missed the fun here," thought Jean. "Hello! What's this?"
He had tripped on a woman's skirt in the shadow of the wall.
"Peste! Why can't our fair dames and demoiselles let us fight it out? There really isn't enough to go round!"