CHAPTER VII

Inside the barricade Saint-Merry, according to a Parisian child's account--General Tiburce Sébastiani--Louis-Philippe during the insurrection--M. Guizot--MM. François Arago, Laffitte and Odilon Barrot at the Tuileries--The last argument of kings--Étienne Arago and Howelt--Denunciation against me--M. Binet's report

Whilst MM. Laffitte, François Arago and Odilon Barrot were on their way to see the king, let us see what was going on behind the Saint-Merry barricade.

One of those strokes of good luck which at times happens to us enables us to take the reader behind the scenes. A child of fourteen who was there, and who has since become a very distinguished man, sent me the following details three years after the cessation of the insurrection, written in his own hand, which I will reproduce in all its native simplicity. After a lapse of nineteen years I have discovered the paper creased and the ink turned yellow, but the story exact and faithful.

"THE BARRICADE SAINT-MERRY

"On the morning of 5 June 1832 my father sent me on an errand along the boulevard du Temple. It was the day of the funeral of the famous General Lamarque and there were large crowds in the place de la Bastille and along the boulevards. Like the true child of Paris that I am, eager to know everything, I stopped at each crowd: they were talking hotly about politics; several persons were so exasperated that they broke the little trees newly planted in place of those which had been sawed down in 1830, to make the barricades. We are well aware, they said, that they will not be of much use against rifles and cannons, but they are first-rate against spies and policemen. There was nothing for it but for me to play truant. Instead, then, of returning home promptly, urged on by my insatiable curiosity I soon reached the Porte Saint-Martin; then I caught sight of General Lamarque's procession in the distance. The hearse came on slowly and stopped from time to time. I was surprised to see so few troops at a general's funeral-cortège; there were at the most only enough soldiers to keep some order during the march. At my age one judges the magnificence of a funeral procession by the number of troops which accompany it, and as a few weeks before I had seen at Casimir Périer's splendid cortège long and wide columns of soldiers marching on both sides of the carriage, I was at first astonished that they did not pay the same military honours to a general as to a banker.

"There were no soldiers; but an immense crowd flooded the boulevards, pushing and squeezing to get near the hearse. People were attached to it and drew the catafalque, shouting from time to time: 'Honour to General Lamarque!' That cry went all through me each time I heard it. They were quarrelling to get hands on the ropes: every one wanted the honour of drawing the precious burden; it was then, for the first time, that I heard men call each other by the name of _citizens._ Every face was stamped with an indefinable electrical enthusiasm, which was communicated through the whole of the crowd; a strong emotional feeling which was neither of grief nor of reflection lit up every face. I was only fourteen then, and I felt the enthusiasm to the bottom of my heart, and an emotion which no language could possibly express.

"'Bah!' I said, 'my father will scold me, but never mind that! I must pull that rope; some day, if I have any children, I will tell them, "I too helped to draw General Lamarque's hearse!" Just as my grandfather is always telling us, "I too belonged to the federation!"'

"Hardly had I hold of the rope--and that was not in a hurry, I can tell you,--when they stood in file! and I realised that the number of soldiers more or less had nothing to do with the matter, but that it was worth more to be a general of one's country than a minister of Louis-Philippe. At the end of a hundred yards I had to give up my place to others: they would have killed me, I believe, to take the rope from me, so I let go and planted myself in front of one of the hedges which the people formed all along the boulevard; but I was violently pushed by the surging of the crowd against a dragoon's horse, and I had one of my big toes nearly broken. It was horribly painful, but, upon my word, it seemed as though enthusiasm could give me courage to bear the pain, if not actually make me forget it, for, hopping along, I followed the cortège as far as the place d'Austerlitz. The vast crowds which were gathering there became more and more menacing. A man with a long beard was haranguing the citizens; he held a red flag, and wore a Phrygian cap. They were discussing preparations for a fight. I listened to it all without understanding much of what it meant. Suddenly, a squadron of cavalry rushed full tilt at the people in a terrible charge: several shots were fired at the same time. Although wounded in the foot, as I have said, I did not stay to be the last on the square. As I was running away, I recognised a friend of mine called Auguste.

"'Where are you going?' I asked him.

"'With the Republicans, of course!' he replied.

"'What to do?'

"'To attack all the guardhouses at the barriers. Are you coming?'

"'Rather! Yes.' And I went. A few of the guardhouses made resistance, but nearly all surrendered without firing. I had no arms, to my disgust. Fortunately, during the attack on one of the positions, a young man, well dressed and with refined manners, fired a pistol; it was overloaded: the butt end went one way and the muzzle another, and the young man fell backwards. I leapt upon the muzzle, picked it up and put it in my pocket, intending to cock it on the sly.

"'Good! the Republicans have artillery,' said Auguste.

"Meanwhile the young man of the pistol picked himself up; he was hurt in the hand, and blood was flowing copiously.

"'Where is there a piece of rag?' he said; 'who has a bit of linen?'

"A boy in a blouse tore his shirt and gave strips of it to the injured man, who kissed him.

"'How funny it is!' I said to Auguste. 'I have never cried at a play and yet I am crying now.'

"In less than three hours, all the guardhouses were taken and disarmed on the place de la Bastille. At that moment, I thought seriously of going back to my father, but two artillerymen of the National Guard asked me if I would do them a kindness. I agreed, of course. They told me to go to the top of the faubourg Saint-Jacques to tell their mother, Madame Aumain, that her sons were all right; that they would probably return home a little later, but that, meantime, she must not be uneasy. I went with Auguste, looking upon it as a sacred duty to give a mother news of her children, and forgetting that my own mother might be just as uneasy as the mother to whom I was going. I should also add that, fearing my father's anger, I delayed as long as I could the moment for returning. We found Madame Aumain at the address given. The lady asked us eagerly how long it was since we had left her sons, and where we had left them; then she put a host of questions to us about the events of the day. She seemed to take the greatest interest in the success of the Republicans. A rather tall girl of exquisite beauty, probably the sister of the two artillerymen, was there, listening and questioning. Delighted with the importance bestowed on us by our errand, Auguste and I bragged like true children of Paris. When the ladies had learned all they wished to know--and they took over an hour in doing so--they urged us to return to our respective parents promptly. In spite of our fears of being severely scolded on our return, we decided to follow their advice, and left Madame Aumain, resolved not to stay on our way. Unfortunately, the traffic was stopped. When we reached the bridges, no use! it was impossible to go over. Then we retreated under a doorway with other individuals, similarly stopped short. But the concierge turned us out at eleven o'clock. Not being able to cross the river, and afraid of being taken up by the patrols, we returned to Madame Aumain, who received us as a mother would her own children, and we improvised a bed in the dining-room. Next day, at four in the morning, Madame Aumain woke us, and told us to go quickly home, so as not to leave our mothers in anxiety any longer. It was easy to say, "Go home!" but to return from the faubourg Saint-Jacques to the faubourg Saint-Antoine, you must pass the Hôtel de Ville. More than two thousand men were stationed on the place de Grève; there was no way of passing through, and we stopped for two or three hours to watch the soldiers going and coming. Every moment big detachments were arriving, and succeeding one another all along the quays. About seven, an officer ran up scared, and shouted 'To arms!'[2] Then, all inquisitive people rushed towards the rue des Arcis. We ran in common with everyone else to see what was going on in that district. A strong barricade was supported on one side against the corner of the rue Aubry-le-Boucher, and, on the other, against No. 30 rue Saint-Martin. They could see well enough that Auguste and I were not enemies, so the Republicans allowed us to pass the barricade. At some distance from the first, there was a second at the top of the rue Maubuée. In the intervening space were sixty armed men. Old men and children were making cartridges. Women were dealing out lint. Over each barricade a red flag floated. One citizen held it up in his left hand, whilst brandishing a sword in his right. One of two men shouted out to the soldiers--

"'Come on, you sluggards! We are waiting for you.'

"A detachment of soldiers appeared in the rue des Arcis at that moment. A young girl, whose lover was among the insurgents, and who stood watching from a window, saw them before anybody else did, and cried, 'To arms,' At the cry of 'To arms!' uttered by the girl, the Republicans took their places, and prepared to repulse the soldiers. The standard-bearers remained motionless on their barricades, ready to sustain the fire. It did not keep them waiting long, and a standard-bearer fell dead. The place was not long vacant; another sprang on the barricade, re-erected the flag and, ten minutes later, also fell. But it seemed they had agreed to see to it that the red flag should still stand, for a third Republican took the place of the second, and again the flag floated. The third was killed like the two others. A fourth took his place and fell near the three others. Then a fifth. The sixth was a working man, a house painter; he seemed to be protected by a charm; for more than an hour he waved the flag, shouting, '_Vive la République!_' At last, at the end of an hour, he slowly got down and leant near the door of the house numbered 30, against which Auguste and I were standing. Then he fell heavily, heaving a sigh: he had said nothing, but he had been hit close to the heart. His brother, who saw him fall, dropped his gun for an instant to come and look after him; but, seeing he was nearly dead, and, sure that his efforts would be useless, he kissed him repeatedly, took up his rifle again, climbed up on the barricade, and slowly took aim, each time that he fired shouting, '_Vive la République!_' Each time, the sixty men who defended the barricade repeated the same cry, and the cry of sixty men, surrounded by 20,000 soldiers, made the throne of Louis-Philippe totter. Finally, both the soldiers and the National Guard at the outskirts of the city were forced to beat a retreat, after three hours' struggle. Meanwhile, Auguste and I, who had not been able to fight, climbed on to the railings of the shop of a wine merchant, and shouted with all the strength of our lungs--'_À bas Louis-Philippe!_' The truce was not for long: in an hour's time, soldiers and National Guards returned to the charge. Then the fight began again. Meanwhile Auguste and I returned to our doorway, and at times we made lint while at others we cast bullets. I often put my head out of the alley to see what was going on when the firing was hottest: then Auguste dragged me back with all his might.

"'Come, look here, do you want to get killed?' he cried.

"Then he would look out in his turn, and it became my turn to grab hold of him. Once, when I had pulled him back more roughly than was permissible, he was angry, and, whilst the people outside were fighting with guns, we fought with our fists. We were both in the right: death was speedy, and the whistling of the bullets so continuous that it sounded like the noise of the wind through a badly-fitting door. No one had yet eaten anything from morning until three in the afternoon. At three, a distribution of brown bread was announced from the house opposite that where we were hiding. Then we ran across the street to fetch our rations in the thick of the bullets. We were just about to bite into our loaves as quickly as possible, when suddenly we heard the cry, 'We are lost!' Then we saw that, whilst the defenders of the barricade still kept possession of it, a dozen people, as curious as ourselves, rushed into the house to seek hiding-places. Auguste and I, who were there already, took the lead, and, climbing the stairs four at a time, soon reached the attic. There was a way out of the attic through a narrow dormer-window, and a man sat astride the roof, holding a strong arm to those who wished to cross to the other side and who were not afraid of attempting that aerial route. Auguste and I did not hesitate for one moment; from roof to roof we gained a window, and found ourselves inside the garrets of another house. The inhabitants of the attic helped us to enter, to the great anguish of the landlord, who shouted on the staircase, 'Be off with you, you scamps! You will burn my house down!' But, as you may well imagine, nobody took any notice of the landlord; all installed themselves as best they could. Things were much worse when he saw two or three combatants, black with powder, arrive in their turn, rifles in hand.

'At least fling away your weapons!' he cried, tearing his hair.

'Throw our rifles away?' replied the fighters.

'Never!'

'But what do you mean to do?'

'To defend ourselves unto death.'

"And as they had no more bullets, but some powder left, they tore the rods from the curtains and slipped them up the muzzles of their guns.

"As for us, who had no arms, and whom the struggle had not transported to such a degree of heroic exaltation as this, we went down to the cellars, which were full of packing cases and vegetables, and we hid ourselves as well as we could. A dozen people descended after us, and also hid themselves to the best of their ability. On the cellar stairs several Republicans planted themselves, standing ready to defend themselves to the last extremity. At that moment we heard the roar of cannon, which shook the house to its base. The paving stones of the barricade flew into splinters, and rebounded on the pavement. Then only was it that I realised the extent of the danger we were running. My first idea was that the house was going to fall, and that we should be buried under its ruins. Then I sank on my knees and, weeping, said all the prayers I could remember. I asked my father and mother's forgiveness for having disobeyed them and for having left them in trouble; I fervently called upon God, and beat my breast with all my might. Auguste showed less despair, and waited death with more courage than I. From time to time we pressed one another tightly in our arms. During one of these embraces he noticed that I still had the barrel of the pistol in my pocket, and he made me throw it to a corner of the yard. Several voices shouted, 'Shoot him if he will not speak!' It was the concierge that was being threatened thus, because he refused to tell where we were hidden. Five minutes later, the door of the cellar was violently broken in, and three or four soldiers sprang on the stairs. Some shots exploded, which lit up the cellar strangely and filled it with smoke. Then, whilst other voices shouted 'Lights!' thirty to forty soldiers rushed into the cellar. From that moment I saw no more; I only heard cries of pain, a clashing of steel, and I felt a hand take me by the neck and shake me violently. Then the hand lifted me two feet from the ground and flung me against the wall. I fell in a faint on the bottom of the cellar steps. Yet from the depths of my unconsciousness, whilst unable to shake myself free from it, I felt those who went up and down the cellar steps pass over my body. At last I succeeded in rousing myself by a violent effort of will. I first got up on one knee with my head bent as though it were so heavy that I could not hold it; then, at last, by the assistance of the wall, I got on to my feet. At that moment an officer caught sight of me and sprang at me, kicking and cuffing me: 'What!' he exclaimed, 'are there even street urchins here?' At the same time a soldier gave me a blow with the butt end of his gun. This flung me against the wall, and instinctively I put up my hands, otherwise my skull would have been broken. Auguste, who followed me, was more lucky; whilst they were mauling me he slipped rapidly up the stairs and escaped a portion of the ill-treatment that those met with who were found in the cellar. At last, with hard cuffs, they made me go up into the yard, and, like all the other prisoners, I was kept in sight under the carriage gateway of No. 5. Our guard was made up of a sergeant and two soldiers. I had been crying so long and been so badly handled that I could scarcely stand on my legs; so in a few minutes I felt I was going to faint again. I held out my arms and called for help. The sergeant sprang forward and caught me. Whilst I was fainting, I did not hear plainly what the good man was saying: I gathered, however, that he was sorry for me, and gave me into the soldier's care.

"That brought me back to my senses in a few minutes, and I opened my eyes again. Then I told him how I came to be there, and the circumstances which had brought Auguste and me to this. My story bore the stamp of such truthfulness that he was touched, and promised he would do us no harm. We remained over half an hour under this doorway, and during that time I was present at all the atrocities which could be committed during a civil war. The victorious soldiers, irritated by their losses, wanted to shed blood in compensation for shed blood. They fired on everybody, without troubling whether they were Republicans or inoffensive citizens; from time to time a dull thud was heard: we did not even seek to ascertain the causes of the noise. It was the wounded being pitched out of the windows, and, as they fell, they slid down the roofs and fell on the pavement. They brought a Republican, taken with arms in his hand, opposite the door and crushed him with blows from the butt end of their guns, spitting him with bayonet thrusts.

"'Wretches!' he cried, 'respect the conquered and prisoners, or give me some sort of weapon and let me defend myself.'

"They loosed him, knocked him over with their rifle butts and shot him point blank.

"Oh! monsieur, I swear that, when a child of fourteen sees such things, he prays to God all his life he may not see them again.

"In No. 30, on the third floor, some soldiers seized a wounded man by his legs and arms and threatened to throw him out of the window. His body was already half in space and about to be flung on the pavement, when other soldiers below, who were firing on the roofs and through the windows, were horrified at this action, and threatened to fire on their comrades. The man was not thrown down. But was he saved, for all that? I have no idea. Soon the sergeant with whom I had made friends received orders to take us to the guardhouse des Innocents. We went through the rue Aubry-le-Boucher and by the front of the markets. As it rained at the time, a great number of soldiers stood under the arcades; as we passed they reviled us, shouting to their comrades--

"'Knock the ruffians down! Kill them!'

"I never took my eyes off the good and kind sergeant, and, whilst a crowd of curious spectators watched us pass and the crowd made a sort of block, he made me a sign. I slipped between the two soldiers, Auguste following me. The crowd made way for us and closed in after us; the soldiers let fly a big oath as though they were furious, though really at heart they were delighted. Our sergeant seemed to have endowed each of his men with some of his own kindliness of heart.

"I ran home without stopping, and fell like a bomb into the midst of my family. My mother fainted; my father stood speechless. They had been told that I had been flung over the pont d'Austerlitz into the Seine. They thought I had died the day before. I was very ill. My father sent me to bed and I nearly had brain fever. I am told, Monsieur Dumas, that this story will interest you, and I send it you.

"Ah! You whose voice is powerful say clearly and say often--

"'_ANYTHING RATHER THAN CIVIL WAR!_'"

What the poor child said is only too true: there were terrible acts of vengeance done on that fatal 6 June, by both the troops and the National Guard. It is a happiness to mention here the name of General Tiburce Sébastiani, whose unending kindness has made us forget (and even worse than forget), the welcome his eldest brother gave us on our arrival in Paris.

General Tiburce Sébastiani, better than any one, could raise the blood-stained veil which we throw over those atrocities; for he was a providence to the wounded whom they finished off slowly, and to the prisoners whom they meant to shoot. Not being able to stand, I had sat down in a chair in the Café de _Paris,_ I think it was, and there I waited for news, when, all at once, cries resounded of "_Vive le roi!_" uttered by the National Guard, and the king appeared on horseback accompanied by the Minister of the Interior, for War and for Commerce. At the club in the rue de Choiseul, he stopped and held out his hand to a group of armed National Guards; even those who, sixteen years later, were to overthrow him, uttered cries of savage joy at the honour he was paying them. He then continued on his way. When I saw him pass, calm and smiling and unconcerned about the danger he was incurring, I felt a sort of moral vertigo, and I asked myself if the man who saluted to these many cheers was not verily a man elect, and if one had the right to strike a blow at a power with which God Himself, by declaring for him, seemed to side. And at each fresh attempt at assassination made against him, from which he escaped safe and sound, I put the same question to myself, and, each time, my conviction got the better of the doubt, and I said--"No, things cannot remain as they are!" The traces of this conviction will be discovered all through my works--in the Epilogue to _Gaule et France,_ in my letter addressed from Reichenau to the Duc d'Orléans, in my visit to Arenenberg, in my articles on the death of the Duc d'Orléans.

This ride seemed to open the series of attempted assassinations of Louis-Philippe; for the attempt at M. Berthier de Sauvigny's cabriolet, on the place du Carrousel, cannot seriously be regarded as an attempt on the king. On the quay not far from the place de Grève, a young woman lay with her wounded husband's rifle to her cheek; but the weapon was too heavy, and her hand too weak: the weight of the gun lowered her hand and the shot was not sent. The king returned about two o'clock. M. Guizot awaited him in his cabinet. The statesman and the king remained together for an hour. No one knows what was decided during that _tête-à-tête_; but we may be sure that M. Guizot, according to the character we know of him, would not be for conciliatory measures. As M. Guizot left by one door, an open carriage brought MM. François Arago, Laffitte and Odilon Barrot. I take the following details from the lips of our famous savant himself. He reminded me of them as he leant on my arm during the walk of 26 or 27 February 1848, to the Bastille. He was then a member of the Provisional Government which reigned for a brief space over the kingdom of Louis-Philippe.

An open carriage, as we said, containing MM. Arago, Laffitte and Odilon Barrot entered the Tuileries courtyard. Scarcely had it turned the corner of the gateway, when a stranger stopped the horses, and ran excitedly to the window. "Do not enter," he said.

"Why not?" asked Odilon Barrot.

"Guizot is leaving."

"Very well, what then?"

"Guizot is your personal enemy, and, perhaps, is giving the order to arrest you at this very moment, as in the case of Cabet and Armand Carrel."

The three commissioners thanked the unknown person; but, not believing there was any danger--or at least, not any imminent--they went on their way, got out of the carriage, and had themselves announced to the king. The king soon gave orders for them to go in. At the moment when he was just passing through the door, M. Laffitte turned round to his two colleagues, and whispered to them--

"Let us be on our guard, gentlemen! he is going to try to make us laugh."

It was a strange moment to choose for fearing such a means of controversy. But M. Laffitte boasted he knew the king better than any body else. It was an assumption allowable to the man who had given him his popularity, and sold the forest of Breteuil.

The king, in fact, received the three deputies with a tranquil face, almost smiling. He told them to be seated, which indicated that the audience would be long, or, at all events, would be as long as the gentlemen wished it to be. Louis Blanc, who was informed by all three actors in that scene, has related it in full detail. I will not add anything, therefore, to it, but put it in dialogue form, which makes it perhaps more vivid.

The situation was a grave one: insurrection at Lyons, insurrection at Grenoble, insurrection in la Vendée, riots or revolution everywhere. But there remained the question as to what were the causes of these bloody troubles and terrible collisions. According to the opinion of the three deputies, it was the reaction brought about by getting farther day by day from the programme of July. The king said it was the spirit of Jacobinism, not properly extinguished under the Convention, the Directory and the Empire, which strove to revive the Days of the Terror. He instanced the appearance of the man with the red flag, whom the Republicans sent back to the rue de Jerusalem, whence he made out he had come.

A conversation based on such lines between a barrister and a king threatened to be of long duration. A sinister sound which was to be heard in the streets of Paris more than once under the reign of Louis-Philippe now made itself heard, and cut the conversation in half, as a blow from a scythe cuts a snake in two.

"Sire, do I hear wrongly?" asked Laffitte, trembling, "Is that cannon?"

"Yes;... they have pushed on," said the king, "to take the Monastery of Saint-Merry without too great loss of life."

"Sire," Laffitte continued, "you are less severe with respect to the Legitimists than towards the Republicans." "In what way?"

"Your Majesty employs strange dealings towards them!"

"Listen, Monsieur Laffitte," said the king, "I always remember the saying of Kersaint: 'Charles I. was beheaded, and his son ascended the throne; James II. was only exiled, and his race died out on the continent.'"

"Sire," said Arago, "we had hoped, however, that, when Casimir Périer died, this system of reaction and of persecution would stop."

"So," replied the king, laughing, "they attribute this system to a minister?"

"No, but at least we hoped it was his work."

"You are mistaken, monsieur," said the king, frowning; "the system is mine; M. Casimir Périer was but an instrument in my hands, strong, and yet pliant like steel; my will has always been, is now and ever shall be immovable. Once only it gave way, as you very well know," added the king. "As M. de Salvandy has said, 'At my fête du Palais-Royal we marched over a volcano--the Revolution, which has spread its principles through every nation in Europe--but every nation has not an Orléans on the throne to suppress them.'"

It was a very differently specified programme than that of the Hôtel-de-Ville. Then M. Arago rose--

"Sire," he said, "after hearing the expression of such opinions as that, do not ever count on my co-operation."

"What do you mean by that, Monsieur Arago?"

"That never, under any capacity, will I serve a king who binds the hands of progress; for, in my opinion, progress is only another name for a well-conducted Revolution."

"Neither more nor less, sire," said Odilon Barrot.

But the king, touching him on the knee, said--

"Monsieur Barrot, recollect that I have not accepted your resignation."

In fact, on 24 February 1848, at seven in the morning, M. Barrot was appointed Minister. True, at noon, he was so no longer! the revolution, which the king boasted to have suppressed, carried him away as a hurricane carries off a dead leaf.

The three deputies got up. As nothing could be done, there was nothing to be said. They were accompanied on their return to the Hôtel Laffitte by the report of cannon. We have related, or, rather, a child of fourteen, an eye-witness, has related the end of the terrible scene. One of our friends, Étienne Arago, was among the Republicans while his brother was with the king. We saw him setting off with Howelt; the same night, thinking I was ill, he wrote to me as follows:--

"MY DEAR DUMAS,--All is over, for to-day, at any rate. The men at the Cloître Saint-Merry fell, but as they should, like heroes. In a word, this is what we saw with our own eyes: We left, as you know, with Howelt; we went along the boulevards, and down the rue du Petit-Carreau. Having gone through the zone of fire which swept the adjacent streets, we saw at the end of the rue Aubry-le-Boucher, where No. 30 rue Saint-Martin is visible, that approach was possible. We had just arrived between two attacks. We took advantage of it to proceed as far as the barricade; it had just been deserted. All was concentrated at No. 30; both attack and defence. We went to a herbalist's and, behind the bunches of herbs hung in his window, we saw the taking of No. 30. The artillery arrived. Can you not imagine my state? I trembled lest my brother Victor, a captain at Vincennes, were among the artillerymen. When I meet you, I will tell you what we saw. Finally!... We only left the street at half-past six. I returned to the Vaudeville, where I came across Savary; he had met you, he told me, at Laffitte's, and there you had both spoken with my brother François.

"I received word from Germain Sarrut to warn me that a warrant had been issued against me.--Yours,

"ÉTIENNE ARAGO"

I was not too easy on my own account. I had been seen and recognised in artillery dress by everybody on the boulevard; I had distributed arms at the Porte-Saint-Martin; finally, I knew that, in the December of the preceding year, a denunciatory epistle against me had been addressed to the king. It was a strange document! it was discovered in 1848 among Louis-Philippe's papers, and fell into the hands of one of the unknown friends of whom I often speak and for whose friendship I am grateful. That friend sent it to me. It is a report dated 2 December 1831, bearing the number 1034. I will transcribe it exactly, although I truly hold a secondary and episodic place in it. It will prove that what I say of my opinions, which are always the same, is not exaggerated. Besides, I think the moment is not very opportunely chosen to brag of being a Republican. It is an authentic report, and bears M. Binet's signature. I need hardly say that I had not the honour of that gentleman's acquaintance. (_See_ Appendix.)