The next morning, the 28th, we knew Paris to be in open revolt. Cannon
boomed, the great bell of Notre-Dame sounded the tocsin, and naturally
we did not go to school. But the masters who gave my sisters lessons
came out to Neuilly, and from them, in turn, we learnt what was going on
within the capital--barricades in all the streets--the troops on the
defensive--the tricolour hoisted everywhere.

On the 29th, the struggle grew closer to us. A bullet fell whistling in
the park. According to the fugitives from Paris, the insurrection had
triumphed, the troops of the line were fraternizing with the rebels, and
the Guard was retiring on Saint-Cloud to gather round the King. I pass
over all the rumours and false reports accompanying this news, which was
all too true. And what were we doing during these anxious hours? We
obeyed various impulses. The first, a fervent sympathy with our
soldiers, who were engaged in the struggle--ces pauvres soldats, the
real France, the real PEOPLE, obeying the noblest motives--honour--duty
opposing the POPULACE, whose envy and evil instincts had been let loose
by a handful of ambitious men. And we knew no rest till the whole staff
of the household had repaired to the various gates of the park, to open
them to the soldiers, separated, dispersed, threatened with massacre as
they were. They were brought in and fed, and given caps and blouses
instead of their uniforms, and put across to the other side of the Seine
in boats. And with all that, so full is the heart of man, and yet more
that of the child, of contradiction, that we followed the current and
made tricolour cockades, my sisters and I, and all of us! There is no
doubt the fascination of the tricolour flag had a good deal to do with
the rapidity with which the Revolutionary powder-train took fire.

As there must always be a laughable side, even to the grimmest events,