"You know how Paris woke up on the morning of the 18th. The members of the Committee heard of the events of the night through public rumours and the official placards. For my own part, aroused at about eight o'clock, I hurried on my clothes, and repaired to the Rue Basfroi, crossing the Place de la Bastille, occupied by the Guard of Paris. I had hardly entered the Rue de la Roquette when I saw that the people were beginning to organise the defence. A barricade was being commenced at the corner of the Rue Neuve de Lappe. A little higher up I was refused passage, in spite of the declaration which I made of my quality of member of the Central Committee. I was obliged to go up the Rue de Charonne, the faubourg, and come back in the direction of the Rue St. Bernard. No work was going on as yet in the Rue du Faubourg St. Antoine, but the excitement there was great. At last, towards half-past ten o'clock, I reached the Rue Basfroi, which was barricaded at both outlets, with the exception of an opening reserved for the cannon drawn up in the open grounds of this street, which were taken away one by one to the different barricades in course of erection.
"I succeeded, not without difficulty, in getting into a schoolroom, where some of my colleagues were gathered. Citizens Assi, Prudhomme, Rousseau, Gouhier, Lavalette, Geresme, Bouit, and Fougeret were there. Just as I entered, a staff sublieutenant, arrested in the Rue St. Maur, was being led in. He was examined. Next a gendarme was brought, but the only papers found in his possession were placards transmitted to one of the mairies. X. looked after this business, and had organised a sort of prison in the courtyard. I also saw defiling about fifteen individuals, military and civil, arrested by the people. In the meantime I learnt that Bergeret had been sent to take the command of Montmartre, where he had been named chef-de-légion the day before. Varlin, who came immediately after me, had set out again in order to organise the defence of the Batignolles. Arnold also put in his appearance for a moment, and then went to place himself at the head of his battalion. The Committee had added Citizens Audoyneau, Ferrat and Billioray to its numbers.
"At mid-day the course events would take was still waited for, and nothing was decided upon. I begged some of my colleagues to leave X. to his useless interrogations, and to come and to deliberate in another room, the one we occupied having by degrees been invaded by persons strangers to the Committee. As soon as we were installed, we asked for some citizens willing to serve as our general staff, and to inform us as to the situation in the different quarters. A great number presented themselves. We sent them in all directions, to tell our colleagues to hurry on as much as possible the construction of the barricades, to muster the National Guard, to take the command of it, and to specify the points whither we were to forward our communications.
"Of our messengers only four returned. He whom we had sent to the twentieth arrondissement informed us that the rallying point was in the Rue de Paris and at Menilmontant, in front of the new mairie. Varlin had great trouble in grouping the National Guards of the Batignolles. One staff had mustered forces at the Place du Trône, and had repaired to the Neuilly Barracks, but the soldiers had closed the gates, and assumed a menacing attitude. Brunel, together with Lisbonne, was preparing to threaten the barracks of the Château d'Eau.
"Other accounts apprised us that the orders of the Committee were being waited for. Duval had established himself at the Panthéon, and waited. Faltot sent us a note in these words: 'I have five or six battalions in the Rue de Sèvres; what am I to do?' Pindy had taken possession of the Mairie of the third arrondissement, and was mustering the battalions devoted to the Committee. As soon as we had got this intelligence some dispositions for the attack were taken.
"While these resolutions were being discussed Lullier had come to place himself at the disposal of the Committee. The Committee had given him no formal order, and confined itself to telling him that all forces available for the taking of the Hôtel-de-Ville were being mustered.
"In order to assure the transmission of the orders, each one of the members then present—others had come up, but I could not say who—undertook to carry them to a designated point. So at three o'clock the Committee broke up, leaving Assi and two other members as a permanent sub-committee at the Rue Basfroi."—Extract from an account addressed to the author by a member of the Central Committee.
III.—(Page 160.)
Here is a letter from one of them, later a most violent enemy of this Revolution, M. Meline, general secretary of the Ministry of Justice, written on the 30th March, to the president of the Council of the Commune:
Ville de Paris (First Arrondissement, Mairie of the Louvre).