All believed it, and were making their way to the Hotel de Ville to hear
it formally confirmed.

Alas! before, they got there they were met by another crowd returning,
dejected but angry. No such news had reached the Government. Chanzy and
Faidherbe were no doubt fighting bravely,--with every probability of
success; but--

The Parisian imagination required no more. "We should always be
defeating the enemy," said Savarin, "if there were not always a but;" and
his audience, who, had he so expressed himself ten minutes before, would
have torn him to pieces, now applauded the epigram; and with execrations
on Trochu, mingled with many a peal of painful sarcastic laughter,
vociferated and dispersed.

As the two friends sauntered back towards the part of the Boulevards on
which De Breze had parted company with them, Savarin quitted Lemercier
suddenly, and crossed the street to accost a small party of two ladies
and two men who were on their way to the Madeleine. While he was
exchanging a few words with them, a young couple, arm in arm, passed by
Lemercier,--the man in the uniform of the National Guard-uniform as
unsullied as Frederic's, but with as little of a military air as can well
be conceived. His gait was slouching; his head bent downwards. He did
not seem to listen to his companion, who was talking with quickness and
vivacity, her fair face radiant with smiles. Lemercier looked at them as
they passed by. "Sur mon ame," muttered Frederic to himself, "surely
that is la belle Julie; and she has got back her truant poet at last."

While Lemercier thus soliloquised, Gustave, still looking down, was led