Mdlle, et Ses Cousines.
5.30. Great Guns of Valérien, Why do you not begin? Know you that tubes charged with bright eyes are directed against you?
LXIII.
I had almost made up my mind not to continue these notes. Tired and weary, I remained two days at home, wishing to see nothing, hear nothing, trying to absorb myself in my books, and to take up the lost thread of my interrupted studies, but all to no purpose.
It is ten in the morning, and I am out again in search of news. How many things may have happened in two days! Not far from the Hôtel de Ville excited groups are assembled at the corners of the streets that lead out of the Rue de Rivoli. They seem waiting for something—what are they waiting for? Vague rumours, principally of a peaceful and conciliatory nature, circulate from group to group, where women decidedly predominate.
“If they help us we are saved!” says a workwoman, who is holding a little boy in the dress of a national guard by the hand.—“Who?” I ask.—“Ah! Monsieur, it is the Freemasons who are taking the side of the Commune; they are going to cross Paris before our eyes. The Commune must be in the right if the Freemasons think so.”—“Here they come!” says the little boy, pulling his mother along with all his strength.