Part 23 (1/2)

A little beyond the Rue de Chemin Vert we turned to the right and reached the Rue Popincourt. There all was deserted, extinguished, closed, and silent, as in the Faubourg St. Antoine. This street is of great length. We walked for a long time; we pa.s.sed by the barracks.

Cournet was no longer with us; he had remained behind to inform some of his friends, and we were told to take defensive measures in case his house was attacked. We looked for No. 82. The darkness was such that we could not distinguish the numbers on the houses. At length, at the end of the street, on the right, we saw a light; it was a grocer's shop, the only one open throughout the street. One of us entered, and asked the grocer, who was sitting behind his counter, to show us M. Cournet's house. ”Opposite,” said the grocer, pointing to an old and low carriage entrance which could be seen on the other side of the street, almost facing his shop.

We knocked at this door. It was opened. Baudin entered first, tapped at the window of the porter's lodge, and asked ”Monsieur Cournet?”--An old woman's voice answered, ”Here.”

The portress was in bed; all in the house sleeping. We went in.

Having entered, and the gate being shut behind us, we found ourselves in a little square courtyard which formed the centre of a sort of a two-storied ruin; the silence of a convent prevailed, not a light was to be seen at the windows; near a shed was seen a low entrance to a narrow, dark, and winding staircase. ”We have made some mistake,” said Charamaule; ”it is impossible that it can be here.”

Meanwhile the portress, hearing all these trampling steps beneath her doorway, had become wide awake, had lighted her lamp, and we could see her in her lodge, her face pressed against the window, gazing with alarm at sixty dark phantoms, motionless, and standing in her courtyard.

Esquiros addressed her: ”Is this really M. Cournet's house?” said he.

”M. Cornet, without doubt,” answered the good woman.

All was explained. We had asked for Cournet, the grocer had understood Cornet, the portress had understood Cornet. It chanced that M. Cornet lived there.

We shall see by and by what an extraordinary service chance had rendered us.

We went out, to the great relief of the poor portress, and we resumed our search. Xavier Durrieu succeeded in ascertaining our whereabouts, and extricated us from our difficulty.

A few moments afterwards we turned to the left, and we entered into a blind alley of considerable length and dimly lighted by an old oil lamp--one of those with which Paris was formerly lighted--then again to the left, and we entered through a narrow pa.s.sage into a large courtyard enc.u.mbered with sheds and building materials. This time we had reached Cournet's.

CHAPTER XIX.

ONE FOOT IN THE TOMB

Cournet was waiting for us. He received us on the ground floor, in a parlor where there was a fire, a table, and some chairs; but the room was so small that a quarter of us filled it to overflowing, and the others remained in the courtyard. ”It is impossible to deliberate here,”

said Bancel. ”I have a larger room on the first floor,” answered Cournet, ”but it is a building in course of construction, which is not yet furnished, and where there is no fire.”--”What does it matter?” they answered him. ”Let us go up to the first floor.”

We went up to the first floor by a steep and narrow wooden staircase, and we took possession of two rooms with very low ceilings, but of which one was sufficiently large. The walls were whitewashed, and a few straw-covered stools formed the whole of its furniture.

They called out to me, ”Preside.”

I sat down on one of the stools in the corner of the first room, with the fire place on my right and on my left the door opening upon the staircase. Baudin said to me, ”I have a pencil and paper. I will act as secretary to you.” He sat down on a stool next to me.

The Representatives and those present, amongst whom were several men in blouses, remained standing, forming in front of Baudin and myself a sort of square, backed by the two walls of the room opposite to us. This crowd extended as far as the staircase. A lighted candle was placed on the chimney-piece.

A common spirit animated this meeting. The faces were pale, but in every eye could be seen the same firm resolution. In all these shadows glistened the same flame. Several simultaneously asked permission to speak. I requested them to give their names to Baudin, who wrote them down, and then pa.s.sed me the list.

The first speaker was a workman. He began by apologizing for mingling with the Representatives, he a stranger to the a.s.sembly. The Representatives interrupted him. ”No, no,” they said, ”the People and Representatives are all one! Speak--!” He declared that if he spoke it was in order to clear from all suspicion the honor of his brethren, the workmen of Paris; that he had heard some Representatives express doubt about them.

He a.s.serted that this was unjust, that the workmen realized the whole crime of M. Bonaparte and the whole duty of the People, that they would not be deaf to the appeal of the Republican Representatives, and that this would be clearly shown. He said all this, simply, with a sort of proud shyness and of honest bluntness. He kept his word. I found him the next day fighting on the Rambuteau barricade.

Mathieu (de la Drome) came in as the workman concluded. ”I bring news,”

he exclaimed. A profound silence ensued.

As I have already said, we vaguely knew since the morning that the Right were to have a.s.sembled, and that a certain number of our friends had probably taken part in the meeting, and that was all. Mathieu (de la Drome) brought us the events of the day, the details of the arrests at their own houses carried out without any obstacle, of the meeting which had taken place at M. Daru's house and its rough treatment in the Rue de Bourgogne, of the Representatives expelled from the Hall of the a.s.sembly, of the meanness of President Dupin, of the melting away of the High Court, of the total inaction of the Council of State, of the sad sitting held at the Mairie of the Tenth Arrondiss.e.m.e.nt, of the Oudinot, _fiasco_, of the decree of the deposition of the President, and of the two hundred and twenty forcibly arrested and taken to the Quai d'Orsay.

He concluded in a manly style: ”The duty of the Left was increasing hourly. The morrow would probably prove decisive.” He implored the meeting to take this into consideration.