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By this time the barricades in the Rues Martignac and Bellechasse had been carried, the red-legs were beginning to make their appearance at the end of the Rue de Lille, and soon all that remained was a little band of fanatics and men with the courage of their opinions, Maurice and some fifty more, who were resolved to sell their lives dearly, killing as many as they could of those Versaillese, who treated the federates like thieves and murderers, dragging away the prisoners they made and shooting them in the rear of the line of battle.
But that they should demolish the house of the murderer Thiers, that they should retain the hostages as a guarantee and a menace, was not that right and just when the Versaillese were unchaining their fury on Paris, bombarding it, destroying its edifices, slaughtering women and children with their shells?
After consultation, he decides to take a place where he can protect the little household when the walls are stormed. He escapes by night to the lines of the Versaillese. For, maddened Paris is now fighting all France. In his capacity of officer, he can at once insure the personal safety of his friends when the city is taken. The red flag floats on the Hotel de Ville. The very streets are unsafe.
The most interesting, everything considered, is that imbecile, that old fanatic of a Dubief, the man that never drank anything but sweetened water; for he, at least, was shot on the barricades by the Versaillese soldiers. One person of whom the very thought disgusted the two friends was that jumping-jack of an Arthur Papillon.
The Versaillese, who were not desirous of attempting a direct attack on the front of the formidable fortress into which the insurgents had converted the terrace of the Tuileries, developed their plan of action with great circumspection; two strong columns were sent out to right and left that, skirting the ramparts, should first seize Montmartre and the Observatory and then, wheeling inward, swoop down on the central quarters, surrounding them and capturing all they contained, as a shoal of fish is captured in the meshes of a gigantic net.
The military operations of the Versaillese had filled the National Guard with alarm and indignation; three columns, embracing a total strength of fifty thousand men, had gone storming that morning through Bougival and Meudon on their way to seize the monarchical Assembly and Thiers, the murderer.
Though the majority of her acts of personal kindness were performed in Versailles rather than in Paris, the Parisians were as vehement in their gratitude as the Versaillese; and it found a somewhat fantastic vent in the erection of pyramids and obelisks of snow in different quarters of the city, all bearing inscriptions testifying the citizens' sense of her benevolence.
And it was not until the following morning, when the sun was high in the heavens, that he awoke, aroused by the ringing of the alarm bells, the blare of trumpets and beating of drums. During the night the Versaillese, finding a gate undefended, had effected an unresisted entrance at the Point-du-Jour.
The sleepy guards at the barrier allowed the carriage to pass without much difficulty, the worthy lady allaying their scruples with a fib, telling them she was bringing back her niece with her to Paris to assist in nursing her husband, who had been wounded by the Versaillese.
A fire burning low in the grate was the sole light of the apartment; its beams flashed mockingly on the somewhat showy Versaillese furniture and gilding here, in style as unlike that of the structural parts of the building as it was possible to be, and probably introduced by Felice to counteract the fine old-English gloom of the place.
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