fall of the Empire had been a triumph for them, and the fourth of
September had opened every career for them. Twenty of these "beards" had
been provided with prefectures; at least all, or nearly all, of them
occupied public positions. There was one in the Government of National
Defence, and three or four others, chosen from among the most rabid ones,
were members of the Committee on Barricades; for, improbable as the thing
may seem today, this commission existed and performed its duties, a
commission according to all rules, with an organized office, a large
china inkstand, stamped paper, verbal reports read and voted upon at the
beginning of each meeting; and, around a table covered with green cloth,
these professional instigators of the Cafe de Seville, these teachers of
insurrection, generously gave the country the benefit of the practical
experience that they had acquired in practising with the game of
dominoes.

The "beards" remaining in Paris were busied with employments more or less
considerable in the government, but did not do very much, the offices in
which they worked for France's salvation usually closed at four o'clock,
and they went as usual to take their appetizers at the Cafe de Seville.
It was there that Amedee met them again, and mixed anew in their
conversations, which now dwelt exclusively upon patriotic and military
subjects. These "beards" who would none of them have been able to
command "by the right flank" a platoon of artillery, had all at once been
endowed by some magical power with the genius of strategy. Every
evening, from five to seven, they fought a decisive battle upon each
marble table, sustained by the artillery of the iced decanter which
represented Mount Valerien, a glass of bitters, that is to say, Vinoy's
brigade, feigned to attack a saucer representing the Montretout
batteries; while the regular army and National Guard, symbolized by a
glass of vermouth and absinthe, were coming in solid masses from the