Part 32

“I? Oh! I am nobody! Odilon Barrot is President of the Council and Minister of the Interior.”

“And Marshal Bugeaud?”

“He has also been replaced by Marshal Gerard. But that is nothing. The Chamber has been dissolved, the King has abdicated and is on his way to Saint Cloud, and the Duchess d’Orleans is Regent. Ah! the tide is rising, rising, rising!”

M. Thiers advises us, M. Ernest Moreau and me, to come to an understanding with M. Odilon Barrot. Action by us in our quarter, which is such an important one, can be of very great utility. We therefore set out for the Ministry of the Interior.

The people have invaded the Ministry and crowded it to the very office of the Minister, where a not over respectful crowd comes and goes. At a large table in the middle of the vast room secretaries are writing. M. Odilon Barrot his face red, his lips compressed and his hands behind his back, is leaning against the mantelpiece.

“You know what is going on, do you not?” he says when he sees us; “the King has abdicated and the Duchess d’Orleans is Regent.”

“If the people so wills,” says a man in a blouse who is passing.

The Minister leads us to the recess of a window, looking uneasily about him as he does so.

“What are you going to do? What are you doing?” I query.

“I am sending telegrams to the departments.”

“Is this very urgent?”

“France must be informed of events.”

“Yes, but meanwhile Paris is making events. Alas! has it finished making them? The Regency is all very well, but it has got to be sanctioned.”

“Yes, by the Chamber. The Duchess d’Orleans ought to take the Count de Paris to the Chamber.”

“No, since the Chamber has been dissolved. If the Duchess ought to go anywhere, it is to the Hotel de Ville.”

“How can you think of such a thing! What about the danger?”

“There is no danger. A mother, a child! I will answer for the people. They will respect the woman in the princess.

“Well, then, go to the Tuileries, see the Duchess d’Orleans, advise her, enlighten her.”

“Why do you not go yourself?”

“I have just come from there. Nobody knew where the Duchess was; I could not get near her. But if you see her tell her that I am at her disposal, that I await her orders. Ah! Monsieur Victor Hugo, I would give my life for that woman and for that child!”

Odilon Barrot is the most honest and the most devoted man in the world, but he is the opposite of a man of action; one feels trouble and indecision in his words, in his look, in his whole person.

“Listen,” he goes on, “what must be done, what is urgent, is that the people should be made acquainted with these grave changes, the abdication and Regency. Promise me that you will proclaim them at your mairie, in the faubourg, and wherever you possibly can.”

“I promise.”

I go off, with M. Moreau, towards the Tuileries.

In the Rue Bellechasse are galloping horses. A squadron of dragoons flashes by and seems to be fleeing from a man with bare arms who is running behind them and brandishing a sword.

The Tuileries are still guarded by troops. The Mayor shows his sash and they let us pass. At the gate the concierge, to whom I make myself known, apprises us that the Duchess d’Orleans, accompanied by the Duke de Nemours, has just left the château with the Count de Paris, no doubt to go to the Chamber of Deputies. We have, therefore, no other course than to continue on our way.

At the entrance to the Carrousel Bridge bullets whistle by our ears. Insurgents in the Place du Carrousel are firing upon the court carriages leaving the stables. One of the coachmen has been killed on his box.

“It would be too stupid of us to stay here looking on and get ourselves killed,” says M. Ernest Moreau. “Let us cross the bridge.”