"But this poor woman," said I. "Are we going to leave her here?"
"Oh," she said, "do not be afraid, I have nothing to fear; as for me, I am an ambulance. I am taking care of the wounded. I shall even relight my candle when you are gone. What troubles me is that my poor husband has not yet come back!"
We crossed the shop on tiptoe. The last-maker gently opened the door and glanced out into the street. Some inhabitants had obeyed the order to light up their windows, and four or five lighted candles here and there flickered in the wind upon the sills of the windows. The street was no longer completely dark.
"There is no one about now," said the last-maker; "but let us make haste, for they will probably come back."
We went out: the old woman closed the door behind us, and we found ourselves in the street. We got over the barricade and hurried away as quickly as possible. We passed by the dead old man. He was still there, lying on the pavement indistinctly revealed by the flickering glimmer from the windows; he looked as though he was sleeping. As we reached the second barricade we heard behind us the soldiers, who were returning.
We succeeded in regaining the streets in course of demolition. There we were in safety. The sound of musketry still reached us. The last-maker said, "They are fighting in the direction of the Rue de Cléry." Leaving the streets in course of demolition, we went round the markets, not without risk of falling into the hands of the patrols, by a number of zigzags, and from one little street to another little street. We reached the Rue Saint Honoré.
At the corner of the Rue de l'Arbre Sec the last-maker and I separated, "For in truth," said he to me, "two run more danger than one." And I regained No. 19, Rue Richelieu.
While crossing the rue des Bourdonnais we had noticed the bivouac of the Place Saint Eustache. The troops who had been dispatched for the attack had not yet come back. Only a few companies were guarding it. We could hear shouts of laughter. The soldiers were warming themselves at large fires lighted here and there. In the fire which was nearest to us we could distinguish in the middle of the brazier the wheels of the vehicles which had served for the barricades. Of some there only remained a great hoop of red-hot iron.
[27] We may now, after twenty-six years, give the name of this loyal and courageous man. His name was Galoy (and not Galloix, as certain historians of the coup d'état have printed it while recounting, after their fashion, the incidents which we are about to read).