much copper about, but if you leave me alone, I promise to succeed.”  All this was said in a tone of the most sincere conviction.  When the dinner was over, he hastily bowed and rushed off, without having taken any notice of what was said to him.  Every now and then cries arose in the streets, and made the members of the Commune start as they sat there behind their sombre curtains.  “Do you think they can come in?” asked some one of Johannard, to which he replies, “What a wild idea!  Delescluze knows it is impossible, and Dombrowski, a cold unexcitable fellow, only laughs when people mention it; does he not, Rigault?” Thereupon the personage addressed, who has not yet spoken, bows his head in sign of acquiescence.  He looks young in spite of his thick, black beard; his eyes are weak, his expression is sly and disagreeable, and looks as if he might sometimes have his hours of coarse joviality.  Then a portiere was lowered, or a door shut, and the person who had overheard the preceding heard and saw no more.

[Illustration:  FONTAINE, DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC DOMAINS AND REGISTRATION.[86]]

FOOTNOTES: 

[Footnote 85:  The Commune occupied the Mint, and directed Citizen Camelinat, bronze-fitter, to manufacture gold and silver coin to the amount of 1,500,000 francs.  Of that sum, 76,000 francs only was saved by the Versailles troops on their entry.  The different articles of gold and silver found at the Hotel des Monnaies represented a total weight of 1,186 lbs., and consisted of objects taken from the churches, religious houses, and government offices, Imperial plate, and presents to the city of Paris.  All these objects have been sent to the repository of the Domaine, where they maybe claimed on identification by their owners.]

[Footnote 86:  Fontaine was nominated on the 18th of March director of the public domains and of registration.  His name figures in the history of the revolutions, emeutes, and insurrections of Paris from 1848.  He was a professional insurgent.]

LXXX.

I am beginning to regret Cluseret.  He was impatient, especially in speech.  He used to say “Every man a National Guard!” But with Cluseret, as with one’s conscience, there were possible conciliations.  You had only to answer the decrees of the war-delegate by an enthusiastic “Why I am delighted, indeed I was just going to beg you to send me to the Porte-Maillot;” which having done, one was free to go about one’s business without fear of molestation.  As to leaving Paris, in spite of the law which condemned every man under forty to remain in the city; nothing was easier.  You had but to go to the Northern Railway Station, and prefer your request to a citizen, seated at a table behind a partition in the passport office.[87] When he asked you your age you had only to answer “Seventy-eight,” passing your hand through your sable locks as you