The armed police, up to that evening so numerous that nowhere could you walk ten yards without encountering them, were withdrawn from the streets; the soldiers were all in their quarters—the very sentries had disappeared: the main guard, which mounts at a large solid building on the Puerta del Sol, used by the ministry of the interior, but best known as the _Principal_ (chief guard-house), had closed the strong gates of the edifice, and gazed listlessly through the windows at the movements of the mob. Every precaution was taken to avoid collisions between the authorities and the harmless rioters who were to carry out Cordova’s plan. But its execution had scarcely begun when the mockery was turned into earnest—so much so, that I am still at a loss to explain, except by the confusion consequent on a change, and the real absence for some hours of all government in Madrid, the want of any opposition to the insurgents. At first, however, the disturbance was a mere riot, although it soon grew into a political revolt. The bands of men that roamed the streets, with shouts, sticks, and a few with arms, presently began to seek modes of actively employing themselves. Long before the hour (between ten and eleven o’clock) at which, as I afterwards ascertained, the Progresista chiefs in Madrid had decided on an outbreak, the people were busily at work. Before nine o’clock they repaired to two public offices where they knew there were arms—the house of the political governor and the town-hall—and, without opposition from the municipal guards they found there, got possession of between seven hundred and eight hundred muskets. These were regularly served out to the people by the leaders of the movement; and soon, on the Puerta del Sol, an immense crowd, in great part armed, besieged the doors of the Principal. The soldiers within had their orders not to oppose the people, but they did not think proper to admit them into their guard-house. Hard by was an enclosure of planks, placed round some of the demolitions going on in the Puerta del Sol (a flagrant job of Señor Sartorius), and there were also beams from the falling houses. Planks and beams were seized by the mob, piled against the doors of the Principal, and set on fire. The dry wood, parched by the summer sun of Madrid, burned like straw. There was danger of the whole building being consumed. The military evacuated it, and the mob took possession. It would have saved a great deal of fighting, and not a few lives, if they had kept it when they once held it; but, as I have already shown, there was a want of organisation at this early period of the night, and no definite intention, on the part of the masses, of accomplishing a revolution. Even up to eleven or twelve o’clock that night, many persons not inexperienced in such movements thought that the disturbance was a mere popular effervescence—the expression of the joy and relief felt by the people at