“I shall not desert you.” “But——” “Yes, citizen.” “What if _you_ are killed?” St. Just replied calmly. “I should not know whither you came.” “True,” I replied; and he taking out his tablets, wrote upon them, from my dictation, the address of the Citizen Duplay. In this act may be seen an example of that forethought and preparation which gave St. Just a position to which otherwise he never would have attained. “Good!” he said, having carefully taken down every particular. “Go forward.” How necessary was his precaution, the next few minutes showed. We had only reached the end of the Rue St. Anne, when a sudden rush of people along the Rue Neuve des Augustins warned us that danger was at hand. I turned and looked at St. Just. Without regarding me, while apparently his sight was on the alert on all sides, he repeated his direction, “Go forward.” Suddenly, shots were heard, and, in a few moments, the street surged with people, who poured out from the houses and joined those who were speeding down the street, running by their sides and asking what the commotion meant. So far, very few of the citizens were aware of the massacres that had taken place upon the altar of the country. Paris, in fact, was that day, for the first time, wholly shadowed by the red flag—which was not to be furled again until a reign of terror, never equalled in the history of the world, was to be followed by the inauguration of Napoleon’s splendor. We were proceeding as rapidly as possible past the current of excited people, when, unquestionably, a deadly fire opened from a small turning on the left. Suddenly, I turned to the left, to see who had struck me; for I felt that a blow had been aimed at my shoulder which had nearly sent me off my feet. As I turned, no man faced me, and I was wondering where the blow came from; when, as suddenly and unexpectedly as I received the blow, I felt sick and weak. It was a woman who screamed, “Blood!” She pointed to the ground. As though looking through a mist, I followed the direction of her pointing finger. There was blood upon the ground. All this had passed in a space not longer than six moments. “Citizen” said the voice of St. Just, “you are wounded; the ball, however, was meant for me.” The last words sounded faintly in my ears, and I thought that he, too, was hurt. “And you, citizen—are you wounded?” “No,” he replied, in a still fainter voice, as it appeared to me; but it was my senses forsaking me. “Citizens,” I heard him say, “if I fall, you will find an address in my pocket, which is the home of this lad.” That was all I heard. Suddenly, the earth appeared to slip from under me, and there was an end of my consciousness.