gave me the strongest impression of a huge catacomb above ground. The
door of a cell was opened for me after traversing a long succession of
cloisters; and on a little wooden trestle, and wrapt in my cloak, I
attempted to sleep. But if sleep has not much to boast of in Paris at
any time, what was it then? I had scarcely closed my eyes when I was
roused by a rapid succession of musket-shots, fired at the opposite
side of the cloister, the light of torches flashing through the long
avenues, and the shouts of men and women in wrath, terror, and agony.
I threw myself off my uneasy bed, and climbing up by my prison bars,
endeavoured to ascertain the cause of the mêlée. But the imperfect
light served little more than to show a general mustering of the
national guard in the court, and a huge and heavy building, into which
they were discharging random shots whenever a head appeared at its
casements. A loud huzza followed whenever one of those shots appeared
to take effect, and a laugh equally loud ran through the ranks when
the bullet wasted its effect on the massive mullions or stained glass
of the windows. A tall figure on horseback, whom I afterwards learned
to be Henriot, the commandant of the national guard, galloped up and
down the court with the air of a general-in-chief manoeuvring an army.
I think that he actually had provided himself with a truncheon to meet
all the emergencies of supreme command. While this sanguinary, and yet
mocking representation of warfare was going on, M. le Commandant was
in full eloquence and prodigious gesticulation. "A la gloire, mes
enfans!" was his constant cry. "Fight, _mes braves!_ the honour of
France demands it: the eyes of Europe--of the world--are turned upon
you. _Vive la Republique!_" And all this accompanied with waving his
hat, and spurring his horse into foam and fury. But fortune is a jade
after all; and the hero of the tricolored scarf was destined to have
his laurels a little shorn, even on this narrow field. While his
charger was caracoling over the cloisters, and his veterans from the