“What you mean to offer me, gentlemen, is the pledge of a peaceful future, on condition that I renounce the present and abandon in time of danger the post entrusted to me. That I cannot do. To such terms I certainly will not subscribe. Go back to the Assembly and say to General Palikao and his colleagues that I rely upon them implicitly; that I grant them full power to take any steps proper for the interest of the country, and approve the same in advance.” Meanwhile the public tumult increased in violence. The red flag was hoisted everywhere. A boy of nine years even climbed up and fastened one to the top of the bronze railing that surrounded the Tuileries. Thousands filled the Place de la Concorde, roaring the Marseillaise at the top of their voices. The Assembly had again met, but so many forced their way into the chamber, and the uproar was so great, that it was impossible to transact any business. “Not here shall the Republic be proclaimed,” shouted Gambetta, “but at the Hôtel de Ville!” This suggestion met with great applause, and the deputies adjourned to that edifice, where a Government of National Defence was formed. The news that the Empire no longer existed quickly spread and was hailed with wildest enthusiasm. Not a voice was raised in behalf of the fallen dynasty. Vast throngs invaded the Hôtel de Ville and valuable portraits of the Emperor and Empress were hacked with knives, trampled under foot, and tossed out of the windows. The imperial emblems were torn to pieces, and the eagle, which could not be easily removed, was covered with paper. “At the windows of the huge barracks filled with troops supposed to be loyal unto death to the Emperor,” says an eye-witness, “I saw soldiers laughing, waving their handkerchiefs, and shouting ‘Long live the Republic!’ Strangers hugged and kissed one another for joy. In the neighborhood of the Pont Neuf, people mounted on high ladders were busy pulling down busts of the Emperor, which were carried in mock state and flung into the Seine, shouts of laughter and applause greeting the splash with which the mutilated images of their former sovereign struck the water.” Chapter XII Eugénie’s Flight to England The Empress mean while was still at the Tuileries. One of the palace prefects had returned from the Assembly with news of what had passed, but she refused to desert her post even though the mob was already at the gates of the palace and a dull roar penetrated the deserted halls. Eugénie’s question as to whether it would be possible to defend the Tuileries without bloodshed was answered in the negative by the governor of the palace, General Mellinet, and she still refused to have a drop of blood shed in her behalf. Nearer and nearer sounded the uproar, and the trampling of feet was now distinctly audible. Shouts were heard: “She will escape!” “Long live the Republic!” “Down with the Spaniard!” “Forward! Into the palace—forward!”