Shamefaced, vanquished, crushed, he retraced his steps to the railway-station, and returned to Paris.
The cabman who drove him assured him that the barricades were erected from the Château d'Eau to the Gymnase, and turned down the Faubourg Saint-Martin. At the corner of the Rue de Provence, Frederick stepped out in order to reach the boulevards.
It was five o'clock. A thin shower was falling. A number of citizens blocked up the footpath close to the Opera House. The houses opposite were closed. No one at any of the windows. All along the boulevard, dragoons were galloping behind a row of wagons, leaning with drawn swords over their horses; and the plumes of their helmets, and their large white cloaks, rising up behind them, could be seen under the glare of the gas-lamps, which shook in the wind in the midst of a haze. The crowd gazed at them mute with fear.
In the intervals between the cavalry-charges, squads of policemen arrived on the scene to keep back the people in the streets.
But on the steps of Tortoni, a man—Dussardier—who could be distinguished at a distance by his great height, remained standing as motionless as a caryatide.
One of the police-officers, marching at the head of his men, with his three-cornered hat drawn over his eyes, threatened him with his sword.
The other thereupon took one step forward, and shouted:
"Long live the Republic!"
The next moment he fell on his back with his arms crossed.
A yell of horror arose from the crowd. The police-officer, with a look of command, made a circle around him; and Frederick, gazing at him in open-mouthed astonishment, recognised Sénécal.