Chapter 20 - Page 2

was defended by the troops.

The barricade was a low one. Another, narrow and high,
protected it in the street. The sun shone upon and
brightened the chimney-tops. The tortuous Rue Saint Antoine
wound before us in sinister solitude.

The soldiers were lying upon the barricade, which was
little more than three feet high. Their rifles were stacked
between the projecting paving-stones as though in a rack.
Now and then bullets whistled overhead and struck the
walls of the houses around us, bringing down a shower
of stone and plaster. Occasionally a blouse, sometimes a
cap-covered head, appeared at the corner of a street. The
soldiers promptly fired at it. When they hit their mark
they applauded "Good! Well aimed! Capital!"

They laughed and chatted gaily. At intervals there
was a rattle and roar, and a hail of bullets rained upon the
barricade from roofs and windows. A very tall captain
with a grey moustache stood erect at the centre of the
barrier, above which half his body towered. The bullets
pattered about him as about a target. He was impassible
and serene and spoke to his men in this wise:

"There, children, they are firing. Lie down. Look out,
Laripaud, you are showing your head. Reload!"

All at once a woman turned the corner of a street. She
came leisurely towards the barricade. The soldiers swore
and shouted to her to get out of the way:

"Ah! the strumpet! Will you get out of that you
w--! Shake a leg, damn you! She's coming to
reconnoitre. She's a spy! Bring her down. Down with
the moucharde!"

The captain restrained them:

"Don't shoot, it's a woman!"

After advancing about twenty paces the woman, who
really did seem to be observing us, entered a low door which
closed behind her.

This one was saved.

At 11 o'clock I returned from the barrier in the Place
Baudoyer and took my usual place in the Assembly. A
Representative whom I did not know, but who I have since
learned was M. Belley, engineer, residing in the Rue des
Tournelles, came and sat beside me and said:

"Monsieur Victor Hugo, the Place Royale has been
burned. They set fire to your house. The insurgents
entered by the little door in the Cul-de-sac Guéménée."

"And my family?" I inquired.

"They are safe."

"How do you know?"

"I have just come from there. Not being known I was
able to get over the barricades and make my way here.
Your family first took refuge in the Mairie. I was there,
too. Seeing that the danger was over I advised Mme. Victor
Hugo to seek some other asylum. She found shelter with
her