the rogue and the charlatan who tempt him, and sacrifices to their mad ambition and culpable projects his peace, his property, his honor, and his life.
My guide, or rather my guard, appeared insensible to the insults as well as to the salutations I received on the way. Arms in hand, always impassible and solemn, it was only now and then he cast toward me an inquisitorial glance, as if to assert his authority and my dependence.
I made known the object of my mission to the leader of the post at the Ministère de la Justice. He was a young and well-bred officer. He listened to me with attention, and replied, after saluting me twice with a politeness full of respect, that I was at liberty to do all I wished.
I found the sick person I had seen the evening before in the hôtel of the minister of justice, exhausted by excitement that was hastening his end. He could see from his sick-bed all that occurred on the Place. In one corner of the apartment his sister, endowed with the higher Christian virtues, and an aged lady whom I did not know, but who was probably their mother, were weeping over the public as well as their own private woes. I had promised the sick person the night before to visit him again in three or four days, but as I could not enter the Place Vendôme without indicating the precise place I wished to go to, and could not have a better means of ascertaining where the victims of the fusillade had been transported, I briefly explained the reason of my unexpected call and gave him some religious encouragement, which was to be the last. I learned that the dead and wounded removed from the Place had been carried to one of the neighboring houses occupied by the administration
and the ambulance of the Crédit Mobilier. I hurried thither.
The Ministère de la Justice was as silent and deserted as on the preceding night. Four sentinels were posted between the court and garden; a fifth at the door of the hôtel had the air of guarding most conscientiously an absent excellency.
In going out, I sought with a discreet glance for my solemn guard, to become anew his prisoner. The officer who had received me a few moments before informed me he had sent him back to his post. From that moment I could go where I pleased.
At the Crédit Mobilier I met two bodies that were being carried to their relatives. I was told that one was M. Molinet, one of the most pious and exemplary young men of the parish. He had been shot down by the side of his father, who, notwithstanding his inexpressible grief, had been torn from the body of his only son and carried as a prisoner to the staff-officer of the Place. After offering up a prayer for these two unfortunate victims, I inquired for the apartment to which the wounded had been carried.
The consternation and terror that reigned among the inhabitants of the Place Vendôme may be imagined from the sinister events that had occurred before their eyes, and the dangers of all kinds with which they were threatened. Stupor was depicted on the faces of the concierges of the Crédit Mobilier. These good people were hardly willing to half-open the door of their lodge, and muttered something vague which was not an answer to my question. At last they sent with me to the salle of the wounded a charming child of eight or ten years of age. He examined with more curiosity than fear the strange features of the citizens of Montmartre and Belleville who occupied the vestibule.
The number of the wounded in the ambulance was six. They were still on the litter on which they had been brought. Two infirmarians, who wore the red cross of the International society, were zealously attending to them: a cantinière of somewhat free manners also manifested an equal desire to aid them. The insurgents that frequented the rooms behaved with propriety; they spoke in low tones, and instead of the care which they were not fitted to bestow, the most of them manifested a sympathy mingled with curiosity. Beyond this, their faces displayed no emotion; my presence did not astonish them; they discreetly retired when I approached the sufferers. No one appeared to me mortally wounded. Nevertheless, I administered religious aid to one of them at his own request, and confined myself to giving the rest as much encouragement as possible, for which they earnestly thanked me. They all belonged to the bourgeoisie. The last to arrive lived in the Rue Meyerbeer, and did not appear to be more than thirty years old. He told me he was to have set out that very evening to join his wife and children in the country, but wished before leaving to perform the part of a good citizen by joining in the manifestation. He had been wounded three times, but not dangerously.