touch to the dismay of the officials, who were already staggering under
the first news of the disaster of Woerth.

Paris, jubilant over an imaginary victory, was enraged by the tidings of
Woerth and Forbach. Already dreading some Revolutionary enterprise, the
Government declared the city to be in a state of siege, thereby placing it
under military authority. Although additional men had recently been
enrolled in the National Guard the arming of them had been intentionally
delayed, precisely from a fear of revolutionary troubles, which the
_entourage_ of the Empress-Regent at Saint Cloud feared from the very
moment of the first defeats. I recollect witnessing on the Place Venddme
one day early in August a very tumultuous gathering of National Guards who
had flocked thither in order to demand weapons of the Prime Minister, that
is, Emile Ollivier, who in addition to the premiership, otherwise the
"Presidency of the Council," held the offices of Keeper of the Seals and
Minister of Justice, this department then having its offices in one of the
buildings of the Place Vendome. Ollivier responded to the demonstration by
appearing on the balcony of his private room and delivering a brief
speech, which, embraced a vague promise to comply with the popular demand.
In point of fact, however, nothing of the kind was done during his term of
office.

Whilst writing these lines I hear that this much-abused statesman has just
passed away at Saint Gervais-les-Bains in Upper Savoy (August 20, 1913).
Born at Marseilles in July, 1825, he lived to complete his eighty-eighth
year. His second wife (nee Gravier), to whom I referred in a previous
chapter, survives him. I do not wish to be unduly hard on his memory. He
came, however, of a very Republican family, and in his earlier years he
personally evinced what seemed to be most staunch Republicanism. When he
was first elected as a member of the Legislative Body in 1857, he publicly