An engagement was going on there, however. The people had constructed three barricades with chairs. The guard at the main square of the Champs-Elysées had turned out to pull the barricades down. The people had driven the soldiers back to the guard-house with volleys of stones. General Prévot had sent a squad of Municipal Guards to the relief of the soldiers. The squad had been surrounded and compelled to seek refuge in the guard-house with the others. The crowd had hemmed in the guard-house. A man had procured a ladder, mounted to the roof, pulled down the flag, torn it up and thrown it to the people. A battalion had to be sent to deliver the guard.
“Whew!” said Franc d’Houdetot to General Prévot, who had recounted this to us. “A flag taken!”
“Taken, no! Stolen, yes!” answered the general quickly.
M. Pèdre-Lacaze came up arm-in-arm with Napoleon Duchatel. Both were in high spirits. They lighted their cigars from Franc d’Houdetot’s cigar and said:
“Do you know? Genoude is going to bring in an impeachment on his own account. They would not allow him to sign the Left’s impeachment. He would not be beaten, and now the Ministry is between two fires. On the left, the entire Left; on the right, M. de Genoude.”
Napoleon Duchâtel added: “They say that Duvergier de Hauranne has been carried about in triumph on the shoulders of the crowd.”
We had returned to the bridge. M. Vivien was crossing, and came up to us. With his big, old, wide-brimmed hat and his coat buttoned up to his cravat the ex-Minister Of Justice looked like a policeman.
“Where are you going?” he said to me. “What is happening is very serious!”
Certainly at this moment one feels that the whole constitutional machine is rocking. It no longer rests squarely on the ground. It is out of plumb. One can hear it cracking.
The crisis is complicated by the disturbed condition of the whole of Europe.