“It is a result that might have cost more dear, in my case especially,” remarks M. Moreau and he shows us his hat which has been pierced by a bullet. “A brand new hat,” he adds with a laugh.
Half past ten o’clock.—Three students from the Ecole Polytechnique have arrived at the Mairie. They report that the students have broken out of the school and have come to place themselves at the disposition of the people. A certain number have therefore distributed themselves among the mairies of Paris.
The insurrection is making progress every hour. It now demands that Marshal Bugeaud be replaced and the Chamber dissolved. The pupils of the Ecole Polytechnique go further and talk about the abdication of the King.
What is happening at the Tuileries? There is no news, either, from the Ministry, no order from the General Staff. I decide to go to the Chamber of Deputies, by way of the Hotel de Ville, and M. Ernest Moreau is kind enough to accompany me.
We find the Rue Saint Antoine bristling with barricades. We make ourselves known and the insurgents help us to clamber over the heaps of paving-stones. As we draw near to the Hotel de Ville, from which the roar of a great crowd reaches our ears, and as we cross some ground on which are buildings in course of erection, we see coming towards us with hurried steps M. de Rambuteau, the Prefect of the Seine.
“Hi! Monsieur the Prefect, what brings you here?” I cry.
“Prefect! Do I know whether I am still Prefect?” he replies with a surly air.
A crowd, which looks anything but benevolent, has already begun to gather. M. Moreau notices a house that is to let. We enter it, and M. de Rambuteau recounts his misadventure.
“I was in my office with two or three Municipal Councillors,” he says, “when we heard a great noise in the corridor. The door was thrown violently open, and there entered unto me a big strapping captain of the National Guard at the head of an excited body of troops.
“‘Monsieur,’ said the man, ‘you must get out of here.’