The next day's papers were full of contradictory telegrams. From Berlin the affair was pooh-poohed. The story of permission having been accorded by the authorities was pure fiction--there had been a scuffle in which a man had been killed, probably by his own friends--the tale of the dishonoured flags was the invention of an imaginative brain. But these contradictions were for the most part frantically contradicted by the Parisian Press. There was a man in Paris who had actually figured on the scene. He had caught M. de Vrai-Castille in his arms as he fell, he had been stained by his heart's blood, his cheek had been torn open by the bullet which killed his friend. Next his heart he at that moment carried portions of the flags--emblems of France!--which had been subjected to such shame. But it was on the following day that the situation first took a definitely serious shape. Placards appeared on every dead wall in Paris, small bills were thrust under every citizen's door--on the bills and placards were printed the same words. They were signed "Quelquechose." They pointed out that France owed her present degradation--like all her other degradations--to her Government. The nation was once more insulted; the Army was once more betrayed; the national flag had been trampled on again, as it had been trampled on before. Under a strong Government these things could not be, but under a Government of cowards----! Let France but breathe the word, "La Grande Nation" would exist once more. Let the Army but make a sign, there would be "La Grande Armée" as of yore. That night there was a scene in the Chamber. M. de Caragnac--_à propos des botte_--made a truly remarkable speech. He declared that permission had been given to these men. He produced documentary evidence to that effect. He protested that these men--true citizens of France!--had been the victims of a "Prussian" plot. As to the outrage to the national flag, had it been perpetrated, say, in Tonkin, "cannons would be belching forth their thunders now." But in Alsace--"this brave Government dare only turn to the smiters the other cheek." In the galleries they cheered him to the echo. On the tribune there was something like a free fight. When the last telegrams were despatched to London, Paris appeared to be approaching a state of riot. The next day there burst a thunderbolt. Five men had been detained by the German authorities. They had escaped--had been detected in the act of flight--had been shot at while running. Two of them had been killed. A third had been fatally wounded. The news--flavoured to taste--was shouted from the roofs of the houses. Paris indulged in one of its periodical fits of madness. The condition of the troops bore a strong family likeness to mutiny. And in the morning Europe was electrified by the news that a revolution had been effected in the small hours of the morning, that the Chambers had been dissolved, and that with the Army were the issues of peace and war.