I felt that it was impossible to remain there, and have the appearance of waiting about; near the Colbert Arcade there is a police-station, and the patrols were passing every moment. I plunged into the street. I found no one there. I went as far as the Rue Vivienne. At the corner of the Rue Vivienne a man was stopping before a placard and was trying to deface it or to tear it down. I drew near this man, who probably took me for a police agent, and who fled at the top of his speed. I retraced my steps. Near the Colbert Arcade, and just as I reached the point in the street where they post the theatrical bills, a workman passed me, and said quickly, "What is Joseph doing?"
I recognized the last-maker.
"Come," he said to me.
We set out without speaking and without appearing to know each other, he walking some steps before me.
We first went to two addresses, which I cannot mention here without pointing out victims for the proscription. In these two houses we got no news; no one had come there on the part of the societies.
"Let us go to the third place," said the last-maker, and he explained to me that they had settled among them three successive meeting-places, in case of need, so as to be always sure of finding each other if, perchance, the police discovered the first or even the second meeting-place, a precaution which for our part we adopted as much as possible with regard to our meetings of the Left end of the Committee.
We had reached the market quarter. Fighting had been going on there throughout the day. There were no longer any gas-lamps in the streets. We stopped from time to time, and listened so as not to run headlong into the arms of a patrol. We got over a paling of planks almost completely destroyed, and of which barricades had probably been made, and we crossed the extensive area of half-demolished houses which at that epoch encumbered the lower portions of the Rue Montmartre and Rue Montorgueil. On the peaks of the high dismantled gables could be seen a flickering red glow, doubtless the reflection of the bivouac-fires of the soldiers encamped in the markets and in the neighborhood of Saint Eustache. This reflection lighted our way. The last-maker, however, narrowly escaped falling into a deep hole, which was no less than the cellar of a demolished house. On coming out of this region, covered with ruins, amongst which here and there a few trees might be perceived, the remains of gardens which had now disappeared, we entered into narrow, winding, and completely dark streets, where it was impossible to recognize one's whereabouts. Nevertheless the last-maker walked on as much at his ease as in broad daylight, and like a man who is going straight to his destination. Once he turned round to me, and said to me,—
"The whole of this quarter is barricaded; and if, as I hope, our friends come down, I will answer that they will hold it for a long time."
Suddenly he stopped. "Here is one," said he. In truth, seven or eight paces before us was a barricade entirely constructed of paving-stones, not exceeding a man's height, and which in the darkness appeared like a ruined wall. A narrow passage had been formed at one end. We passed through it. There was no one behind the barricade.
"There has already been fighting here a short time ago," said the last-maker in a low voice; and he added, after a pause, "We are getting near."