The History of a Crime / The Testimony of an Eye-Witness

by Victor Hugo

In the meantime the copies of the appeal to arms did not come to hand. The Representatives, becoming uneasy, went up and downstairs. Some of them went out on the Quai Jemmapes, to wait there and gain information about them. In the room there was a sound of confused talking the members of the Committee, Madier de Montjau, Jules Favre, and Carnot, withdrew, and sent word to me by Charamaule that they were going to No. 10, Rue des Moulins, to the house of the ex-Constituent Landrin, in the division of the 5th Legion, to deliberate more at their ease, and they begged me to join them. But I thought I should do better to remain. I had placed myself at the disposal of the probable movement of the Faubourg St. Marceau. I awaited the notice of it through Auguste. It was most important that I should not go too far away; besides, it was possible that if I went away, the Representatives of the Left, no longing seeing a member of the committee amongst them, would disperse without taking any resolution, and I saw in this more than one disadvantage.

Time passed, no Proclamations. We learned the next day that the packages had been seized by the police. Cournet, an ex-Republican naval officer who was present, began to speak. We shall see presently what sort of a man Cournet was, and of what an energetic and determined nature he was composed. He represented to us that as we had been there nearly two hours the police would certainly end by being informed of our whereabouts, that the members of the Left had an imperative duty—to keep themselves at all costs at the head of the People, that the necessity itself of their situation imposed upon them the precaution of frequently changing their place of retreat, and he ended by offering us, for our deliberation, his house and his workshops, No. 82, Rue Popincourt, at the bottom of a blind alley, and also in the neighborhood of the Faubourg St. Antoine.

This offer was accepted. I sent to inform Auguste of our change of abode, and of Cournet's address. Lafon remained on the Quai Jemmapes in order to forward on the Proclamations as soon as they arrived, and we set out at once.

Charamaule undertook to send to the Rue des Moulins to tell the other members of the committee that we would wait for them at No. 82, Rue Popincourt.

We walked, as in the morning, in little separate groups. The Quai Jemmapes skirts the left bank of the St. Martin Canal; we went up it. We only met a few solitary workmen, who looked back when we had passed, and stopped behind us with an air of astonishment. The night was dark. A few drops of rain were falling.

A little beyond the Rue de Chemin Vert we turned to the right and reached the Rue Popincourt. There all was deserted, extinguished, closed, and silent, as in the Faubourg St. Antoine. This street is of great length. We walked for a long time; we passed by the barracks. Cournet was no longer with us; he had remained behind to inform some of his friends, and we were told to take defensive measures in case his house was attacked. We looked for No. 82. The darkness was such that we could not distinguish the numbers on the houses. At length, at the end of the street, on the right, we saw a light; it was a grocer's shop, the only one open throughout the street. One of us entered, and asked the grocer, who was sitting behind his counter, to show us M. Cournet's house. "Opposite," said the grocer, pointing to an old and low carriage entrance which could be seen on the other side of the street, almost facing his shop.

We knocked at this door. It was opened. Baudin entered first, tapped at the window of the porter's lodge, and asked "Monsieur Cournet?"—An old woman's voice answered, "Here."

The portress was in bed; all in the house sleeping. We went in.

Having entered, and the gate being shut behind us, we found ourselves in a little square courtyard which formed the centre of a sort of a two-storied ruin; the silence of a convent prevailed, not a light was to be seen at the windows; near a shed was seen a low entrance to a narrow, dark, and winding staircase. "We have made some mistake," said Charamaule; "it is impossible that it can be here."

Meanwhile the portress, hearing all these trampling steps beneath her doorway, had become wide awake, had lighted her lamp, and we could see her in her lodge, her face pressed against the window, gazing with alarm at sixty dark phantoms, motionless, and standing in her courtyard.