“With my own eyes I saw the cross upon the door of Mme. de Liéven’s house,” he replied.
President Franck-Carré met M. Duchâtel this morning and said: “Well, how goes it?”
“What are you going to do about the riot?”
“I am going to let the rioters alone at the rendezvous they arranged for themselves. What can they do in the Place Louis XV. and the Champs-Elysées? It is raining. They will tramp about there all day. To-night they will be tired out and will go home to bed.”
M. Etienne Arago entered hastily at this juncture and said: “There are seven wounded and two killed already. Barricades have been erected in the Rue Beaubourg and in the Rue Saint Avoye.”
After a suspension of the session M. Guizot arrived. He ascended the tribune and announced that the King had summoned M. Mole, to charge him with the formation of a new Cabinet.
Triumphant shouts from the Opposition, shouts of rage from the majority.
The session ended amid an indescribable uproar.
I went out with the deputies and returned by way of the quays.
In the Place de la Concorde the cavalry continued to charge. An attempt to erect two barricades had been made in the Rue Saint Honoré. The paving-stones in the Marché Saint Honoré were being torn up. The overturned omni-buses, of which the barricades had been made, had been righted by the troops. In the Rue Saint Honoré the crowd let the Municipal Guards go by, and then stoned them in the back. A multitude was swarming along the quays like irritated ants. A very pretty woman in a green velvet hat and a large cashmere shawl passed by amid a group of men wearing blouses and with bared arms. She had raised her skirt very high on account of the mud, with which she was much spattered; for it was raining every minute. The Tuileries were closed. At the Carrousel gates the crowd had stopped and was gazing through the arcades at the cavalry lined up in battle array in front of the palace.
Near the Carrousel Bridge I met M. Jules Sandeau. “What do you think of all this?” he queried.
“That the riot will be suppressed, but that the revolution will triumph.”
On the Quai de la Ferraille I happened upon somebody else I knew. Coming towards me was a man covered with mud to the neck, his cravat hanging down, and his hat battered. I recognized my excellent friend Antony Thouret. Thouret is an ardent Republican. He had been walking and speech-making since early morning, going from quarter to quarter and from group to group.