Part 28

“The Ministry of Marine has been taken.”

“Let us go and see!” said Franc d’Houdetot to me.

We went out. We passed through a regiment of infantry that was guarding the head of the Pont de la Concorde. Another regiment barred the other end of it. On the Place Louis XV. cavalry was charging sombre and immobile groups, which at the approach of the soldiers fled like swarms of bees. Nobody was on the bridge except a general in uniform and on horseback, with the cross of a commander (of the Legion of Honour) hung round his neck--General Prévot. As he galloped past us he shouted: “They are attacking!”

As we reached the troops at the other end of the bridge a battalion chief, mounted, in a bernouse with gold stripes on it, a stout man with a kind and brave face, saluted M. d’Houdetot.

“Has anything happened?” Franc asked.

“It happened that I got here just in time!” replied the major.

It was this battalion chief who cleared the Palace of the Chamber, which the rioters had invaded at six o’clock in the morning.

We walked on to the Place. Charging cavalry was whirling around us. At the angle of the bridge a dragoon raised his sword against a man in a blouse. I do not think he struck him. Besides, the Ministry of Marine had not been “taken.” A crowd had thrown a stone at one of the windows, smashing it, and hurting a man who was peeping out. Nothing more.

We could see a number of vehicles lined up like a barricade in the broad avenue of the Champs-Elysées, at the rond-point.

“They are firing, yonder,” said d’Houdetot. “Can you see the smoke?”

“Pooh!” I replied. “It is the mist of the fountain. That fire is water.”

And we burst into a laugh.

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.

The King, nevertheless, is very calm, and even cheerful. But this game must not be played too far. Every rubber won serves but to make up the total of the rubber lost.

Vivien recounted to us that the King had thrown an electoral reform bill into his drawer, saying as he did so: “That is for my successor!” “That was Louis XV.’s mot,” added Vivien, “supposing reform should prove to be the deluge.”

It appears to be true that the King interrupted M. Salandrouze when he was laying before him the grievances of the “Progressists,” and asked him brusquely: “Are you selling many carpets?” *

* M. Salandrouze was a manufacturer of carpets.

At this same reception of the Progressists the King noticed M. Blanqui, and graciously going up to him asked:

“Well, Monsieur Blanqui, what do people talk about? What is going on?”