Some regiments seemed stupefied.  They cried, “Throw up your butt ends in the air!” From the windows above, women encouraged the construction of the barricades.  There was powder there, there were muskets.  Now, we were no longer alone.  We saw rising up in the gloom behind us the enormous head of the people.  Hope at the present time was on our side.  The oscillation of uncertainty had at length become steady, and we were, I repeat, almost perfectly confident.

There had been a moment when, owing to the good news pouring in upon us, this confidence had become so great that we who had staked our lives on this great contest, seized with an irresistible joy in the presence of a success becoming hourly more certain, had risen from our seats, and had embraced each other.  Michel de Bourges was particularly angered against Bonaparte, for he had believed his word, and had even gone so far as to say, “He is my man.”  Of the four of us, he was the most indignant.  A gloomy flash of victory shone in him.  He struck the table with his fist, and exclaimed, “Oh! the miserable wretch!  To-morrow—­” and he struck the table a second time, “to-morrow his head shall fall in the Place de Greve before the Hotel de Ville.”

I looked at him.

“No,” said I, “this man’s head shall not fall.”

“What do you mean?”

“I do not wish it.”

“Why?”

“Because,” said I, “if after such a crime we allow Louis Bonaparte to live we shall abolish the penalty of death.”

This generous Michel de Bourges remained thoughtful for a moment, then he pressed my hand.

Crime is an opportunity, and always gives us a choice, and it is better to extract from it progress than punishment.  Michel de Bourges realized this.

Moreover this incident shows to what a pitch our hopes had been raised.

Appearances were on our side, actual facts not so.  Saint-Arnaud had his orders.  We shall see them.

Strange incidents took place.

Towards noon a general, deep in thought, was on horseback in the Place de la Madeleine, at the head of his wavering troops.  He hesitated.

A carriage stopped, a woman stepped out and conversed in a low tone with the general.  The crowd could see her.  The Representative Raymond, who lived at No 4, Place de la Madeleine, saw her from his window.  This woman was Madame K. The general stooping down on his horse, listened, and finally made the dejected gesture of a vanquished man.  Madame K. got back into her carriage.  This man, they said, loved that woman.  She could, according to the side of her beauty which fascinated her victim, inspire either heroism or crime.  This strange beauty was compounded of the whiteness of an angel, combined with the look of a spectre.

It was the look which conquered.

This man no longer hesitated.  He entered gloomily into the enterprise.