Part 25 (1/2)

”Yes, and dead, too”

A gloomy silence followed I rose ”You have no doubt some measures to take?” I said

”Whatwe resolved to decree what you have already been able to do on a sanization of the citizen's National Guard--every Frenchman a soldier as well as a voter But time is required, and meanwhile--”

he pointed to the waves and eddies of heads surging on the square outside--”look, it is the sea!”

A boy wearing an apron entered and spoke to hiood!” said Lao?”

”Thanks, I have already lunched”

”I haven't and I aer At least coo, afterwards”

He showed entle faced youngat a table rose and was about to withdraw He was the young workman whom Louis Blanc had had attached to the Provisional Government

”Stay where you are, Albert,” said La of a private nature to say to Victor Hugo”

We saluted each other, M Albert and I

The little waiter showed Lamartine a table upon which were some mutton cutlets in an earthenware dish, solass The whole cahbourhood

”Well,” exclaiht you had knives and forks here,” returned the boy ”I had trouble enough to bring the luncheon, and if I have got to go and fetch knives and forks--”

”Pshaw!” said Las as they come!”

He broke the bread, took a cutlet by the bone and tore the meat with his teeth When he had finished he threw the bone into the fireplace In this lasses of wine

”You will agree with me that this is a primitive repast!” he said ”But it is an iht We had only bread and cheese aar-bowl Which didn't, it appears, prevent a newspaper this y of the Provisional Government!”

I did not find Victor in the room where he was to have waited for , he had returned home alone

When I issued on to the Place de Greve the croas still excited and in a state of consternation at the inexplicable collision that had occurred an hour before The body of a wounded man who had just expired was carried past me They told me that it was the fifth It was taken, as the other bodies had been taken, to the Salle Saint Jean, where the dead of the previous day to the number of over a hundred had been exposed

Before returning to the Place Royale I uard-houses Outside the Minimes Barracks a boy of about fifteen years, armed with the rifle of a soldier of the line, was proudly uard It see or the day before

”What!” I said, ”are you doing sentry duty again?”

”No, not again; I haven't yet been relieved”