were, paused occasionally, looking about them with curiosity, and almost uniformly in a bewildered and inquiring manner. I had reached the colonnade of the Théâtre Français, when a strong party of _gendarmes à cheval_ went scouring up the street, at a full gallop. Their passage was so swift and sudden, that I cannot say in which direction they came, or whither they went, with the exception that they took the road to the Boulevards. A _gendarme à pied_ was the only person near me, and I asked him, if he could explain the reason of the movement. "_Je n'en sais rien_," in the _brusque_ manner that the French soldiers are a little apt to assume, when it suits their humours, was all the reply I got. I walked leisurely into the galleries of the Palais Royal, which I had never before seen so empty. There was but a single individual in the garden, and he was crossing it swiftly, in the direction of the theatre. A head was, now and then, thrust out of a shop-door, but I never before witnessed such a calm in this place, which is usually alive with people. Passing part of the way through one of the glazed galleries, I was started by a general clatter that sprung up all around me in every direction, and which extended itself entirely around the whole of the long galleries. The interruption to the previous profound quiet, was as sudden as the report of a gun, and it became general, as it were, in an instant. I can liken the effect, after allowing for the difference in the noises, to that of letting fly sheets, tacks, and halyards, on board a vessel of war, in a squall, and to a sudden call to shorten sail. The place was immediately filled with men, women, and children, and the clatter proceeded from the window-shutters that were going up all over the vast edifice, at the same moment. In less than five minutes there was not a shop-window exposed. Still there was no apparent approach of danger. The drums had almost ceased beating, and as I reached the Carrousel, on my way back to the Rue St. Dominique, I saw nothing in the streets to justify all this alarm, which was either the result of a panic, or was calculated for political effect; artifice acting on apprehension. A few people were beginning to collect on the bridges and quays, and there was evidently a greater movement towards the Pont Neuf, than in the lower parts of the town. As I crossed the Pont Royal, a brigade of light artillery came up the quays from the Ecole Militaire, the horses on the jump, and the men seated on the carriages, or mounted, as belongs to this arm. The noise and hurry of their passage was very exciting, and it gave an impulse to the shopkeepers of the Rue du Bac, most of whom now began to close their windows. The guns whirled across the bridge, and dashed into the Carrousel, on a gallop, by the _guichet_ of the Louvre.