an ejaculation of "Oh, good gracious!" from my valet, made me run to the
window. The Court of the Palais-Royal was closed, but all the galleries
were filled with a surging, yelling crowd, the more violent of whom were
battering at the staircase door facing Chevet's shop. "They are going to
break it in and come upstairs: they'll be here in another moment," we
said to ourselves. "What is to be done?"

Amidst the general shouting, yells of "Death to Louis Philippe!" were to
be heard. Then, all at once, in the gaslight, I saw the policemen's
swords twinkle, pinking people in all directions. Soon the troops came
hurrying up with fixed bayonets, and the rabble took to their heels at
the sight of them. This crowd had just come back from Vincennes, whither
it had gone to demand the heads of Charles X.'s ministers, who were shut
up in the fortress, from General Daumesnil, "the man with the wooden
leg," and having failed in that attempt it wanted to have my father's
instead.

So that affair ended; but fresh opportunities for creating disturbances
soon occurred, and were as eagerly seized upon. One was during a great
diplomatic dinner given by my father in the dining-room of the Palais-
Royal, which looks out on the Cour des Fontaines. I was sitting by Lord
Granville's daughter, and doing my best to make myself pleasant, when
the uproar of the riot burst upon us suddenly and interrupted all the
talk. Everybody looked at everybody else, and then down at their own
plate, and everybody looked very sorry to be where he was at that
moment. Then the noise of a great trampling of hoofs on the pavement
revealed the fact that the cavalry was charging, whereupon the sky
cleared, and conversation began again, though not without some
appearance of effort.