All at once a heavy cart with a powerful horse is discovered—the people seize it—the horse is lashed into fury—he rushes on the double line of dragoons and chasseurs—a breach is made—the crowd dash through—some rush up the steps of the Chamber of Deputies—they force the gates—they even enter the hall—then, suddenly panic-stricken at their own audacity, they rush back! At this moment, along the Quai d'Orsay, gallops up a strong detachment of the mounted Municipal Guard, led by General Peyronet Tiburce Sebastiani, brother of the Marshal and uncle of the unhappy Duchess of Praslin. A charge was ordered, the crowd was driven over the bridge, and the Municipal Guard, a company of dragoons and a squadron of hussars took up a position at the foot of the Obelisk of Luxor. "Long live the dragoons!" shouted the people. "Down with the Municipal Guard!" accompanied by hootings, groans, shouts and showers of stones. The troops, with sheathed sabres, charged. One of the immense fountains afforded the gamins a place of shelter. Suddenly the flood of water was let on and they fled.
Thus began the revolution.
One o'clock tolled from the tower of the Madeleine. The area was clear. Cavalry patrolled the boulevards. Infantry, bearing, besides their usual arms, implements for demolishing barricades—axes, adzes and hatchets—each soldier one upon his knapsack, followed.
At two o'clock, at the Hôtel des Affaires Étrangères, at the corner of the Rue des Capucines and the Boulevard, an immense mass of men ebbed and flowed like tides of the sea, and a tempest of shouts, groans and choruses to national songs arose.
A commissary of police in colored clothes, and with the tri-colored sash, led a body of Municipal Guards into the court. Deliberately they charge their muskets with ball. "In the name of the Law!" shouted the commissary. "Vive la Ligne!" responded the people, as they slowly retired.
"Away," cried a trooper to a blouse, in the Place de la Concorde, at the corner, near the Turkish Embassy; "Away, or I'll cut you down!"
"Will you, coward!" replied the artisan, calmly, with folded arms. At that moment a body of the people rushed on the Municipal Guards and drove them for safety into their barracks; then they fled themselves to avoid the fusillade of the enraged troops.
On the Pont de la Concorde the people stopped the carriage of a Ministerial Deputy and saluted him with groans. The next moment Armand Marrast, of "Le National," approached and was most rapturously cheered.
The money-changers, those seers of Napoleon, scented not yet the revolution. On Friday, the three per cents. were 75f. 85c. On Tuesday they opened at 73f. 90c. and closed at 74f.