CHAPTER V

Last moments of General Lamarque--What his life had been--One of my interviews with him--I am appointed one of the stewards of the funeral cortège--The procession--Symptoms of popular agitation--The marching past across the place Vendôme--The Duke Fitz-James--Conflicts provoked by the town police--The students of the École Polytechnique join the cortège--Arrival of the funeral procession at the pont d'Austerlitz--Speeches--First shots--The man with the red flag--Allocution of Étienne Arago

On 1 June, at half-past eleven in the evening, General Lamarque had breathed his last. His death was a great event. At that period the Republican party used Napoleon's name as a weapon. Now, General Lamarque--a thing which would be much more difficult to define now than in those days, when people judged much more by instinct than by education--General Lamarque was, at that time, a supporter of the Empire and also of liberty, a soldier of Napoleon and a friend of La Fayette. Napoleon, it will be remembered, had made him Maréchal de France at Saint-Helena. Neither the Bourbons of the Elder Branch, nor those of the Younger, had had sufficient intelligence to ratify the appointment; but, in the eyes of France, it was, indeed, one of her maréchals who had just died. Then, too, there was really something grand about his death, by reason of the circumstances under which it happened and the particular incidents which had accompanied it. A multitude of sayings after the style of Cato and Leonidas were quoted that General Lamarque had said on his deathbed. He died heroically and yet regretting life. The thought which had dwelt in his heart as long as it beat was--"I have not done enough for France!"

The illness of which the general died seemed to deceive the doctors; sometimes the invalid appeared to be on the high way to convalescence and the bulletin of his health would announce the good news to his friends; sometimes a fatal crisis put the sick man further back than the improvement had carried him. He himself was never deceived by these passing improvements. His friends, Drs. Lisfranc and Broussais, attended him with the devotion both of science and of friendship.

"My friends," the general invariably said to them, "I am grateful for your care; I am touched by it, but you will not vanquish the disease! You have hope and you want me to hope; in vain, I feel I shall succumb."

Then, a minute later, he added with a sigh--

"Ah! I am sorry to die! I should have liked to serve France still longer.... And, too, I am specially disappointed not to be able to measure swords with Wellington, who made his reputation by the defeat he inflicted at Waterloo; I have made a study of him; I knew his tactics and I am quite sure I should have beaten him!"

Laffitte went to see him as often as his busy life allowed. At the last visit he paid him, France alone was the leading topic of conversation.

"Oh! my friend! my friend!" the invalid said, as he said good-bye to him, "reserve your strength for France; she alone is great! We are all small.... But," he added, weighed down by a never-ceasing idea, "I depart still full of regret that I have not been able to avenge my country for the infamous treaties of 1814 and 1815."

It was General Lamarque who uttered the sublime phrase that was flung at an orator who was boasting of the peace which had been brought about with the return of the Bourbons--

"The peace of 1815 is no peace; it is a halt in the mud!" General Exelmans, the other old war comrade who was to survive him by twenty years to die from a fall off his horse, came also to see him, and to try to restore hope, which, as we have said, had long before died in the heart of the invalid.

"What matter," he exclaimed, in a kind of impatience, "what matter that I die, provided my country lives?"

In a moment of discouragement, when he saw open before him the grave, which had swallowed up much patriotism, he had the sword of honour brought to him which had been given him by the officers of the Hundred Days, whose cause he had pleaded with much fervour and great success; then, sitting up in bed, he drew the sword from its scabbard, looked at it a long time, laid it across his knees, and finally carried it to his lips, saying--

"My dear officers of the Hundred Days! They gave it me to be used, and I have not used it!"

Once, overcome by grief, in the presence of Dr. Lisfranc, he made an onslaught against the impotent art which we call medicine. Suddenly, perceiving before whom he was speaking, he said--

"I curse medicine, but I bless doctors, who do a lot with the small amount of knowledge which science places in their hands. Embrace me, Lisfranc, and do not forget that I loved you very much!"

His last moments were, as we see, worthy of a soldier; he had struggled against death as Leonidas against Xerxes; his bed had been the battlefield. An hour before he died, in the agony which his sufferings betrayed by his starts and shudderings, he opened his eyes, which had been closed for thirty-six hours, and three times he uttered the two words: "Honour! Country!"--the two words engraved on the Cross of the Legion of Honour. He breathed his last an hour after he had uttered the cry which had been that of his whole lifetime.

It is said that a dying man achieves greatness; it is true, both morally as well as physically. General Lamarque increased enormously in greatness in everybody's eyes.

They remembered the boy volunteer of nineteen, the young captain of the famous infernal column, bringing to the Convention a strip of flag taken from the enemy, and winning from that great and terrible Assembly a vote pronouncing Captain Lamarque to have deserved well from his country. How splendid his military life had been through the thirty years that had passed since then!

They remembered Caprée, Calabria, the Tyrol and Wagram, where he broke the Austrian army three times; they recalled and extolled his struggles each day in Catalogne, against Wellington, who never conquered him and whom he hoped to conquer. Then, too, his political life, as a member of the Tribune, was none the less fine; his presence in all the struggles in the Chamber; his voice always raised on behalf of the honour and defence of France; his entreaties in favour of liberty when it was threatened; his cries of alarm each time he saw the Revolution compromise; ill and weak as he was up to the day he took to his bed, he never kept silence or yielded when any question of national honour arose.

When General Foy died, he at least left us Lamarque, as Miltiades left Themistocles. When General Lamarque died, he left behind him the heritage of a race of warriors which has given generals to the battlefield and tribunes to the Chamber. In spite of all the right he had to public recognition, the Government of Louis-Philippe, who only regarded General Lamarque as an enemy, and rejoiced at the fall of an enemy, only accorded to his obsequies the tribute of honour strictly due to the political and military position of a general; all the funeral arrangements were left to the pious care and to the responsibility of his friends and family.

I was made a steward by the family and had the charge of seeing that the artillery took its proper place behind the funeral car. This honour was, in a way, a souvenir which the dead bequeathed to the living. In common with General Foy and General La Fayette, General Lamarque had been very friendly to me, due, indeed, more to memory of my father than to my own personal valour. But still, when he knew, about the close of 1830, that I had returned from la Vendée, where I had been sent by General La Fayette, he begged me to go and see him. We talked for long of the Vendée as he had known it in 1815, when he was going on a mission from a fresh government; I told him all I thought about it, namely, that, some day or other, it threatened to rise in revolt. Every word of mine answered to some foresight of his own. I traced out my journey for him with blackheaded pins and indicated the probable places where there would be gatherings. He left for Nantes on the following day. But they did not let him reach his destination; at Angers he was stopped by an order recalling him.

We believe this measure was the result of those niggardly schemes which the ministry of Casimir Périer labelled with the title of wide political vision, and I believe I am not wrong in applying to him the same explanation that I did not hesitate to apply to Louis-Philippe, after the interview I had the honour to have with him upon our return from Vendée.

The revolution of 1830 had been so sudden that, for a moment, we Republicans thought it was complete; the report of its arms and its cries of liberty had reverberated throughout Belgium, Italy and Poland; three nations rose and cried, "France, come to our aid!" An appeal like this France always listens to, and General La Fayette replied in the name of France. The most lively and popular sympathy had, moreover, burst forth in our towns and countrysides in favour of revolutions carried out on our own lines; partial and distant eruptions of that great volcano whose crater is in Paris, and which seems at times extinct, like Etna, but, as deceptive as Etna, is always burning! Shouts of "_Vivent l'Italie, la Belgique et la Pologne!_" filled our streets and entered everywhere through the windows and doors of royal and ministerial palaces. It was scarcely three months after the Revolution; at that period all still glowed with the sun of the Three Days, the grand voice of the people was still listened to, and the Government only had to promise through General La Fayette, as we have said above, for the nations of Belgium, Italy and Poland to be kept from perishing. And we heard the cries of joy of these foreign patriots in less than four months change to cries of distress. But what other could we expect? Let them succour Italy by sending one of the old generals, who would have shown them the way to make a new army, and Poland by diverting the Czar's plans, by inciting--an easy task for us--Turkey on one side and Persia on the other. Thus caught in a triangle of fire, we should leave Russia to contend, and we should divide between our two neighbour nations the most effective aid of our presence and of our arms. The people, true and profound of instinct, would thus feel, without being able to account for the means, the three probable results, and they would receive with shouts of joy the proclamation of the ministerial system of nonintervention, and the royal promise that the Polish nationality should not perish.

Advanced as were the ministers of Louis-Philippe's kingdom, they must either go to war or forswear it: by making war, they would get into trouble with kings; by forswearing it, they would get into trouble with the people. One way only remained: to prove to the country that it had too much to do in respect of its own affairs to busy itself in meddling with those of others; it was like giving to France an internal fever, as we have already said; through being taken up with its own sufferings it would have more sympathy for those of others. A small civil war in la Vendée would help its outlook wonderfully. It was therefore necessary to send far out of that country, upon which they wished to experiment, all strong men who might compromise movements from their beginnings, and all shrewd men who might guess the real cause of those movements.

Now, Lamarque was both a strong man and a far-seeing one; so they did not give him time to arrive on the scene of civil war. It was to these circumstances I owed the honour of coming in contact with General Lamarque and of not being forgotten by the family at the time of rendering the last honours to the conqueror of Caprée. I went to tell my friends Bastide and Godefroy Cavaignac of my appointment, and asked them if they had arranged anything for the morrow. They had a meeting at Étienne Arago's for the same evening, who, as I have previously said, was lieutenant in the 12th Legion of Artillery, and who, in case of a triumphant insurrection, was designed by a secret organisation to be mayor of the first arrondissement; the son of the noted barrister Bernard (of Rennes), was his associate. Arago lived in Bernard's house, which was at the corner of the place and rue des Pyramides. Nothing was settled at this meeting; no sort of plan was drawn up or scheme fixed upon: each one was left to his own devices to act according to circumstances. Nevertheless, the detachment of artillery commanded for the funeral cortège appeared armed at the house of mourning and provided themselves with cartridges.

On 5 June, the day fixed for the funeral, I went at eight in the morning to the general's house, in the faubourg Saint-Honoré. In my capacity as steward I had no rifle, nor, consequently, any cartridges. There were already, by eight o'clock, over three thousand persons in front of the house. I saw a group of young people who were preparing a kind of ammunition-waggon with ropes. I went up to them and asked them what they were busy with. "They were arranging the ropes," they replied, "with which to draw the funeral car." At the same time, they informed me that General Lamarque's body was lying in state in his sleeping-room and that people were defiling past the bed of state. I went and put myself in the queue and filed past in my turn. The general in full uniform was laid on his bed, with his gloved-hand on his bare sword; he had a fine head, and his dignity was increased by the majesty of death. Those who passed by did so in silence and veneration, stooping as they reached the foot of the bed and sprinkling holy water on the corpse with a bough of laurel. I passed by as the rest did and went back into the street again. I was extremely weak from the effect of the cholera, I had lost all my appetite and scarcely ate an ounce of bread a day. The day promised to be a fatiguing one: so I went into my friend Hiraux's, whose café was, as we know, at the corner of the rues Royale and Saint-Honoré, and I waited until the time for departure, trying to take a cup of chocolate. At eleven, a rolling of drums called me to my post. They had just brought down the coffin under the great gate, shrouded with black. All the various elements which go to the formation of a funeral procession rolled along the rue and faubourg Saint Honoré--National Guards, workmen, artillerymen, students, old soldiers, refugees of all countries, citizens from every town; leaving, like a twin lake, their waves rolling across the place de la Madeleine and the place Louis XV. At the roll of the drums, all this crowd disentangled itself and every one rallied round his own leader, flag and banner. Many only had laurel or oak branches for banners and flags. All this passed before the eyes of the four squadrons of carabiniers who occupied the place Louis XV. The 12th Light Infantry waited at the other end of Paris on the very place de la Bastille. The Municipal Guard, on its side, was placed at intervals along the route which extended from the Préfecture de Police to the Panthéon. A detachment of the same guard protected the Jardin des Plantes. A squadron of dragoons covered the place de Grève with a battalion of the 3rd Light. Finally, a detachment of soldiers of the same troop stood ready to mount their horses at the Célestins barracks. The remaining troops were confined in their respective barracks, and orders were given that regiments from Rueil, Saint-Denis and Courbevoie should be sent if needed.

There were then in Paris, on the morning of that terrible day, nearly eighteen thousand men of the line and light infantry; four thousand four hundred cavalry; two thousand of the garde municipale infantry and cavalry. Nearly eighty thousand men in all. We had been told of this increase of troops--for we had friends even in the War Office--an increase due indisputably to the circumstances under which they found themselves; they had added that the Government only waited an excuse for showing its strength; this meant that, instead of fearing a riot, they desired one. But there was so much ardour in the young political head which constituted the Republican party, that directly the match touched the flint, the spark flashed forth which was to fire the powder-magazine, the very powder-magazine which was to blow us all up. We were congregated on the place Louis XV. with all the heads of the secret societies. Only one of these societies, the Société Gauloise, was in favour of fighting. The previous day, the _Société des Amis du peuple_ had met in the boulevard Bonne-Nouvelle and had decided, as we had done on our part, that firing was not to be begun, but that it should be answered if it were begun by the soldiers. As will be seen it needed only a single shot to lead to a general slaughter.

In addition to this state of things, the heat was stifling, the atmosphere charged with electricity, and huge black clouds rolled over Paris, as though the sky were in mourning and wanted to take part in the funeral ceremony, by the rolling of its thunder. It is quite impossible to-day, at this distance of time, twenty-two years later, to give any idea of the degree of excitement to which the crowd had reached, when it received from its leaders the order to take the place assigned to each corps, corporation, society and nation, in the funeral procession. It was not a cortège; it was a federation round a funeral bier. At half-past eleven, under a driving rain, the state-carriage moved forward drawn by thirty young men. The corners of the pall were held by General La Fayette--who had a working man by his side wearing the July decoration, on whose arm the general leant from time to time when the paving became too slippery--by MM. Laffitte, Isay and Châtelain, of the _Courrier français_; by the Maréchal Clausel and by General Pelet; and, lastly, by M. Mauguin and a student from the École Polytechnique. Behind the bier walked M. de Laborde, questor to the Chamber, preceded by two ushers, accompanied by MM. Cabet and Laboissière, stewards of the cortège, and followed by a number of deputies and generals. The principal deputies were--

MM. le maréchal Gérard, Tardieu, Chevandier, Vatout, de Corcelles, Allier, Taillandier, de Las Cases fils, Nicod, Odilon Barrot, la Fayette (Georges), de Béranger, Larabit, de Cormenin, de Bryas, Degouve-Denuncques, Charles Comte, le général Subervie, le colonel Lamy, le Comte Lariboissière, Charles Dupin, Viennet, Sapey, Lherbette, Paturel, Bavoux, Baude, Marmier, Jouffroy, Duchaffaut, Pourrat, Pèdre-Lacaze, Bérard, François Arago, de Girardin, Gauthier d'Hauteserve, le général Tiburce Sébastiani, Garnier-Pagès, Leyraud, Cordier, Vigier.

The principal generals were--

MM. Mathieu Dumas, Emmanuel Rey, Lawoestine, Hulot, Berkem, Saldanha, Reminski, Seraski.

Of these three latter, the one was a Portuguese and the two others were Poles. With them were the maréchals de Camp Rewbell, Schmitz, Mayot and Sourd.

After the deputies and generals came the exiles of all countries, each group carrying its own national banner. Two battalions formed the escorting troop and marched in echelon on each side. Then--just as, in the midst of its quays, the flowing river overflows its banks after a storm--rolled by nearly six hundred artillerymen with loaded rifles and cartridges in their cartridge-boxes and pockets; then ten thousand of the National Guard without guns, but armed with sabres; then groups of working men intermingled with members of secret societies; then thirty, perhaps forty or fifty thousand citizens! All these moved past in the rain. The cortège turned at the Madeleine along the boulevard, crowded on both sides with women and men, forming a variegated carpet, which the citizens at their doors or windows, men, women and children, took part in as though on a tapestry pattern. Not one of the ordinary sounds men make at great gatherings issued from that crowd. Only, from time to time a signal was given and, with incredible cohesion, the cry was uttered by a hundred thousand voices whilst flags, banners, pennons, branches of laurel and of oak were waved--

"_Honneur au général Lamarque!_..."

Then all lips were silent; and the branches of oak and laurel, pennons, banners and flags expressed no more motion than as before a brief and hot squall during a tempest. All was as silent and nearly as still as death. But in the air there floated an invisible something, whispering low: "Misfortune!" All eyes were fastened on us, the artillerymen. They knew well that if anything burst forth it would be from among the ranks of the men in that severe uniform who marched side by side, with gloomy looks and clenched teeth, who, like impatient horses shaking their plumes, shook the red streamers on their shakos. I could the better judge of these arrangements, as, under instruction from the family, I did not walk in the ranks, but by the side of the artillery. From time to time, men of the people whom I did not know broke through the hedge, and shook me by the left hand--I held my sabre in my right--and said to me--

"The artillery need not be anxious, we are here!"

It took nearly three-quarters of an hour to get to the rue de la Paix. There, a movement was, all at once, set on foot which no one at first understood. It was not in the programme. The head of the cortège was drawn in the midst of unintelligible shoutings in the direction of the place Vendôme. I ran to make inquiries: thanks to my uniform and to a certain popularity which it had already acquired, and especially to the gold-fringed tri-coloured scarf which I wore on my left arm, everybody made way for me. I therefore gained with more ease than I should have expected the head of the column, which was already moving into the rue de la Paix. And this is what had happened.

At the top of the rue de la Paix, a man dressed as an operative, but who it was easy to recognise belonged to a higher class, had broken away from the boulevards and was exchanging a few words with the young people attached to the hearse. Soon, a cry went up--

"Yes, yes, the soldier of Napoleon, round the column!... To the column! To the column!"

And, without consulting either generals or deputies or police, whether in uniform or without, a unanimous impulse made the catafalque deviate from the straight line and it was hurried into the rue de la Paix. This was episode the first of that day's journey. I ran and resumed my place.

"What is the matter?" they asked me.

"The hearse is going to be taken round the column."

"Will the post present arms?" a voice asked.

"_Pardieu!_" said another voice, "if they do not present arms of their own accord they shall be made to do so by force."

"Honour to General Lamarque!" shouted a hundred thousand voices.

Then, as before, all returned to silence: the head of the cortège reached the place Vendôme. Suddenly, a great shudder went through the crowd: that serpent with its thousand coils trembled at the least shock from head to the tail. At the sight of the cortège coming out on the place Vendôme, the picket of the staff officers remained shut inside the guardhouse. The sentinel alone paced up and down before the door. A shout sounded--

"Honour to General Lamarque! Honour to General Lamarque!"

At the same time, a fiery crowd rushed upon the staff officer's guardhouse. The commandant did not even attempt to offer resistance; after a moment of parleying, he ordered his soldiers out, took the field and presented arms. This first episode prepared for the struggle by showing that the most lukewarm spirits were ready for an outburst. This successful issue was looked upon as a victory. It is, moreover, probable that the head of the guardhouse had had no orders of any kind.

The procession round the column had no connection whatever with the programme; the officer yielded, not from fear, but from the sympathy which, no doubt, his soldierly heart felt towards the remains of the great general and the famous member of the Tribune. He did wisely, for a terrible collision would else have taken place; and as it was so close to the Tuileries, who knows what would have happened? The cortège regained the rue de la Paix, and resumed its sombre and silent march along the boulevards. It reached the club in the rue de Choiseul, now the _Cercle des Arts_; the balcony was filled with members of the club. Only one had his hat on his head; he was Duke Fitz-James. I guessed what would happen and I confess I trembled. I knew Duke Fitz-James very well indeed, and he, on his side, returned my friendship heartily. I knew that, if forced, he would rather be torn to pieces than take off his hat. I was, therefore, most anxious that he should raise it of his own accord. Just at that moment, whether by chance or by pre-concerted provocation, the insistent phrase, "Honneur au général Lamarque!" was echoed, followed by the cry, "Take off your hat! Off with your hats!" At the same time, a hailstorm of stones broke the windows of the house. The duke was obliged to withdraw. Three days later, I asked him for an explanation of this show of bravado, as it was very much out of harmony with his courteous manners.

"I cannot answer you as to this," said the duke; "the explanation of the riddle will reach you from la Vendée."

Indeed, a letter from the noble duke was found among the papers of Madame la duchesse de Berry, giving the explanation of the keeping on of the hat: it was a signal to which no one responded, or, rather, to which only those replied who could not understand it. This incident stopped the procession for nearly ten minutes; the National Guards appeared upon the terrace and asserted that what had been taken for an insult from the ex-peer of France was only an aberration; and the catafalque resumed its route through the crowd, as a heavy-laden vessel, which has the wind against it, painfully cleaves through the waves of the sea. From that moment all doubt ceased in my mind, and I was convinced that the journey would not be done without resort to firearms. The six hundred artillerymen with their pale faces and frowning brows were also convinced of it. However, no other incident occurred during the course from the Choiseul Club to the Saint-Martin Gate. After passing the Gymnase, the rain had stopped falling; but thunder rumbled incessantly, intermingling with the rolling of the drums. The presence of the police placed at intervals along the sides of the procession put the finishing touch to the irritation in people's minds. Their aggressive air caused the feeling that they were there to get up a quarrel; or, much more likely, instead of being inclined to alienate quarrels, to stir them up with all their might. Opposite the theatre, a woman observed to a man of the people who carried a flag, that the Gaulois-cock was a bad emblem of democracy. The bearer of the standard, in all probability sharing this opinion, reversed the flag, broke the Gaulois-cock under foot and put in its place a branch of willow, the tree of mourning and friend of the tomb. A policeman saw this substitution and the conditions under which it was made; he sprang forward and snatched the standard from the hands of the man who carried it; the latter resisted, and the policeman drew his sword and struck him in the throat. At the sight of blood, a cry of rage went forth from every mouth; twenty swords, sabres and daggers came out of their scabbards. The policeman recognising that I was a steward, sprang to my side, crying, "Save me!" I pushed him in among the ranks of the artillerymen; some were of a mind to protect him, others to tear him to pieces; for five minutes he stood as pale as a corpse between life and death. The more generous feeling carried the day, and he was saved. At the same moment, all looks were attracted towards the same direction. An insult was offered by another policeman to a veteran captain, who drew his sword and attacked him. The policeman, on his side, drew his sword from its sheath and defended himself furiously. When he attained the pavement he buried himself out of sight in the density of the crowd, where his flight could be noted by the imprecations which rose as he passed through. The young man wounded by the first policeman had been able to continue on his way, leaning on the arms of two friends. Only, he had taken off his collar, and the blood from his gaping wound flowed on to his shirt and down his coat. His July decoration (I remember that it was a July ribbon) had become as red as the ribbon of the Legion of Honour. From this moment the conviction went through all minds that a bloody affray was approaching. Everything, in fact, seemed to suggest the use of arms; the rolling of drums, the noise of the tamtams, the fluttering of the flags of all countries, the constant struggle between liberty and slavery, the cries of "Honneur au général Lamarque!" becoming more and more frequent and every time assuming a more distinctly threatening character, the earth beneath and the skies above, and all that rent the air, combined to incite people's minds to a pitch of excitement filled with danger.

"Where are they leading us?" a terrified voice cried from the midst of a group of students.

"TO THE REPUBLIC!" replied a strong, sonorous voice, "_and we invite you to suffer with us to-night in the Tuileries!"_

A kind of groan of joy greeted this invitation, which, in a different sense, recalled that of Leonidas to those of Thermopylæ, and I saw men who had no arms tear up the stakes which were used as props for the young trees that had just been planted on the boulevard in place of the old ones knocked down on 28 July 1830. Others broke the trees themselves to make into clubs.

The 12th Light were, as I have said, drawn up in line on the place de la Bastille. For an instant, it was thought the conflict would begin there; but, all at once, an officer came out from the front line, and advancing towards Étienne Arago, with whom he talked for a moment, he said to him--

"I am a Republican, I have pistols in my pockets; you can rely upon us."

Several artillerymen, who, like myself, had heard these words, shouted: "_Vive la ligne!_" The cry uttered by us was taken up with enthusiasm: they knew we should not give such a cry without reason. The line replied by a shout nearly as unanimous of: "_Honneur au général Lamarque!_" These words, "The line is on our side," repeated from rank to rank, ran through the whole length of the cortège like lightning. At the same time, loud shouts were heard of "_L'École Polytechnique!... vive l'École! vive la République!_" These were inspired by the sight of some sixty students running with disordered raiment, bareheaded, some with swords in their hands. They had been consigned to their quarters and had broken out, overturning General Tholosé, who had tried to oppose their coming out; they had come to throw their popular name and their uniform, still blackened with the powder of July, into the insurrection. The artillery received them with open arms; they knew that, few though they were in number, they were a powerful support. Their arrival produced so much effect that, at sight of therm the band which preceded the hearse spontaneously played the _Marseillaise._ No idea can be formed of the enthusiasm with which the crowd greeted that electrifying air, forbidden for over a year. Fifty thousand voices repeated in chorus, "_Citizens, to arms!_" To this chant, the cortège crossed the place de la Bastille and traversed the boulevard Bourdon, advancing between the Saint-Martin canal and the public granaries. A platform was put up at the entrance to the bridge of Austerlitz; from it the farewell orations were to be given. After these were pronounced, the body of General Lamarque continued its route towards the département des Landes, where it was to be interred, whilst the procession returned to Paris.

It was after three o'clock in the afternoon; I had had nothing since the previous night, except the cup of chocolate from my friend Hiraux: I was literally dropping from exhaustion. The speeches bade fair to be long, and, naturally, tedious; so I proposed to two or three of the artillerymen to come and dine at the _Gros Marronniers,_ and they accepted.

"Will anything happen?" I asked Bastide before I went off.

"I think not," he said, looking round him, "and yet, do not be deceived, the 29 July is in the air."

"In any case, I shall not go far away," I said, and I went.

"Are you going away?" Étienne Arago said to me.

"I will return in a quarter of an hour."

"Make haste, if you wish to take part!"

"How can I, I have neither rifle nor cartridges?"

"You must do as I have done, put pistols in your pockets."

He showed me the butt-end of a pistol sticking out of his pocket.

"_Diable!_" I exclaimed, "if I thought anything would happen I would dispense with dinner!"

"Oh! don't be anxious, if there is anything it will last long enough for you to come back before dessert."

That was probable, so we went off without scruples. I was so weak that I was obliged to lean on the arm of my two companions, and I very nearly fainted before entering the restaurant. They made me drink iced water and I revived. Everything was topsy-turvy, and we had great difficulty in getting waited on. We were engrossed in a huge fish-pie, the main dish always served in a dinner _à la Râpée,_ when we heard a volley of firing, but so peculiar in sound that we never doubted but that it was the discharge over the hearse in honour of the illustrious dead.

"To the memory of General Lamarque!" I said, raising my glass.

My two companions pledged me. Then we heard four or five single shots.

"Oh! oh!" I exclaimed, "that is another tale altogether! Those shots sound like sport."

I ran on to the quay, where I climbed up on a railing. Nothing could be made out except that there was a great commotion about the pont d'Austerlitz.

"Pay quick and come and see what that music is," I said to my two companions.

We flung 10 francs on the table; but, as the firing increased, we did not ask for our change, we started running towards the barrier. The sound of firing had given me back my strength. When we reached the barrier, we found it guarded by men in blouses who, on perceiving us, shouted, "_Vivent les artilleurs!_" We ran up to them.

"What has been happening?" we asked.

"Only that they are firing on the people, and the artillery has returned the fire; père Louis-Philippe is at his last gasp and the Republic is proclaimed. _Vive la République!"_

We looked at one another. The triumph seemed to us too complete for the short time it had taken to happen in. But this is what had actually happened, and the stage things had reached. I said that, as we left, they were about to begin the orations. Banners of every nation had been taken up on to the platform--Polish, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese waved their standards of every colour above the catafalque, and amongst them was the flag of the German Union seen floating for the first time, black and red and gold.

General La Fayette had begun by saying a few lofty, calm and serene words, in keeping with the grand old man who uttered them; then came Mauguin, less restrained; Clausel, more military; then the Portuguese General Saldanha. Whilst the orators were speaking, the young men went from group to group disseminating news, such as: "They are fighting at the Hôtel de Ville!" or, "A general has just declared himself against Louis-Philippe Others, "The troops have revolted!" or, "They are marching upon the Tuileries!" No one believed such rumours seriously, and yet they warmed and stirred people's spirits and hearts. After our battery had passed through the boulevard, it took up its position near the platform. There were gathered Étienne Arago, Guinard, Savary, corresponding by means of signs with Bastide and Thomas, who were on the boulevard Bourdon. In the middle of General Saldanha's speech, attention seemed suddenly distracted; cries, commotion and rumours drew all eyes towards the boulevards. A man clad in black, tall, thin and as pale as a ghost, with dark moustaches, holding in his hand a red flag edged with black fringe, and mounted upon a horse which he had difficulty in steering through the crowd, waved his blood-coloured flag, on which was written in black letters--

"LIBERTY OR DEATH!"

Where did the man come from? Neither at the trial or sentence was this told. All that was known was that his name was Jean-Baptiste Peyron, and that he came from the Basses-Alpes. He was condemned to ONE MONTH'S imprisonment. We none of us knew him. Was he excited, as he said himself, by a feeling of enthusiasm bordering on madness? Was he a seditious agent? The mystery has never been elucidated. But, wherever he came from and whatever the motive by which he was animated, his appearance was greeted with unanimous disapproval. General Exelmans shouted in a voice which dominated every other--

"Not the red flag! the flag of terror; we only want the tricolour, which is that of glory and liberty."

Two men then sprang on General Exelmans, and tried to drag him towards the canal. It was never known who they were. He shook them off and came across to the Comte de Flahaut.

"What is to be done?" General Exelmans asked.

"Run to the Tuileries and warn the king of what is going on."

They both rushed off to the Tuileries. At that moment, two young men unharnessed General La Fayette's carriage and led it towards the Hôtel de Ville. Simultaneously, and as though the impulse had been associated with the appearance of the man with the red flag, a column of dragoons came out of the Célestins barracks. M. Gisquet had sent the order, which ought to have been given by General Pajol, Commander of the First Military Division. The appearance of the dragoons, which at first, however, meant nothing hostile, as their pistols were in their holsters and their rifles hung at their saddlebows, yet produced a certain amount of commotion along the boulevard Bourdon. Étienne Arago saw the effect and leant over towards Guinard's ear.

"I think it is time to begin," he said.

"Begin!" Guinard answered, laconically.

Arago did not wait to hear it twice; he rushed on to the platform. A student had followed after General Saldanha; Arago took his place and shouted--

"We have had enough of that kind of speech! Few words are needed and they are _Vive la République!_ It was to that cry General Lamarque began his military career, it is to that cry we should follow his remains. _Vive la République!_ Follow me, those who agree with me!"

Not one word of the allocution was lost; scarcely was it seen that a lieutenant of the artillery was going to speak before everybody kept silence. Besides, the name of Arago, which was very popular, had circulated in a whisper below the tremendous shout of "_Vive la République!"_

At the last words of his speech, Arago took possession of one of the flags from the platform, and, flag in hand, with Guinard and Savary by his side, he rushed to our battery. But, in the commotion which had followed the speech, the crowd had broken the ranks of the artillerymen in such a way that the three leaders, followed only by about thirty men, had disappeared from the sight of their other companions. At this moment, some shots were heard in the boulevard Bourdon.

Let us follow the fortunes of Arago, Guinard and Savary; we will return presently to the other portion of the struggle.