blow has been struck in a formidable manner. The Assembly is invested. I
have come from thence. The Place de la Révolution, the Quays, the
Tuileries, the boulevards, are crowded with troops. The soldiers have
their knapsacks. The batteries are harnessed. If fighting takes place it
will be desperate work."

I answered him, "There will be fighting."

And I added, laughing, "You have proved that the colonels write like
poets; now it is the turn of the poets to fight like colonels."

I entered my wife's room; she knew nothing, and was quietly reading her
paper in bed.

I had taken about me five hundred francs in gold. I put on my wife's bed
a box containing nine hundred francs, all the money which remained to me,
and I told her what had happened.

She turned pale, and said to me, "What are you going to do?"

"My duty."

She embraced me, and only said two words:--

"Do it."

My breakfast was ready. I ate a cutlet in two mouthfuls. As I finished,
my daughter came in. She was startled by the manner in which I kissed
her, and asked me, "What is the matter?"