"Happy those who linger yet The steep ascent to climb, For jewels lie like treasures set Upon the breast of Time."
On the morning of the 3d and 4th of Dec., the fate of Paris, like a stormy sea, was rocking to and fro in the minds of this versatile and fickle people.
On the 2d of December, the morning after the ascent of the members of the National Assembly, I went to the Boulevards to see how the populace took this daring of the Presidents. The place was crowded with groups discussing the importance of this blow to their liberties. Old, white-headed men were making speeches in different places within sight. But while they were making speeches Louis Napoleon was at the Palace decreeing laws for this particular occasion, and he was not only in the Palace quelling the populace, but the very same day he rode through the Boulevards at the head of soldiers, and people shouted _vive l'empereur_. How and why they said this, when as yet they had none, remains to be seen. That night fifty or sixty thousand soldiers slept in the streets of Paris, and cavalry stood close to the side walk for miles without one single break of ranks. The soldiers had their rations carried to them. Next morning, the 3d, the rebels commenced their work of destruction in spite of the soldiers. The news came into Paris from all parts of France that a hundred thousand soldiers were rapidly marching to the assistance of the army and sustainance of the republic. But this did not intimidate the factions. The soldiers though now one hundred thousand strong, right in the city, they had to keep on the march, up one street and down another, to keep down the barricade builders. I saw a strong wall built across a street in a quarter of an hour. They go about peaceable in droves until they pass the soldiers and then with pickaxes and crowbars and all manner of iron implements dig up the flag-stones, door-sills and stone steps, and place them one upon another until they get them head high. They leave small apertures to poke their pistols and guns through, and therefrom they fight the soldiers who cannot, except by accident, shoot through the apertures. If the soldiers come down behind them to hem them in, they jump over the barricade and they are as well there as on the other side. But the soldiers are in a critical condition fighting barricaders, because they have their friends on the top of the houses and in each story, throwing down all manner of heavy things, such as pots, skillets, pans, chairs, beds, plates, dishes, tumblers and bottles on the heads of the soldiers until they are intimidated enough to stand from under. I saw one old orator leading the rebels up by the side of the soldiers and trying to persuade some of them to say they would not fire on the citizens if they were ordered. The captain of these troops told him if he did not leave off talking with the soldiers that he would have him shot. He would not, and was placed back against the wall and shot through.