success of the revolution was that it was in the hands of so few persons, who were all absolutely secret and trustworthy. If there had been a few more, the police would have found us out to a certainty. One who was suspected was "squared." At last the ball opened. There was the great banquet, and the muttering storm, and angry mobs, and small _emeutes_. There is a mere alley--I forget its name--on the right bank, which runs down to the Seine, in which it is said that every Paris revolution has broken out. Standing at its entrance, I saw three or four shots fired and dark forms with guns moving in the alley, and then came General Changarnier with his cavalry and made a charge, before which I fled. I had to dodge more than one of these charges during the day. Before dark the rioting was general, and barricades were going up. The great storm-bell of Notre Dame rung all night long. The next morning I rose, and telling Leonard Field, who lived in the same hotel with me, that I was going to work in earnest, loaded a pair of duelling-pistols, tied a sash round my waist _en revolutionnaire_, and with him went forth to business. First I went to the Cafe Rotonde, hard by, and got my breakfast. Then I sallied forth, and found in the Rue de la Harpe a gang of fifty insurgents, who had arms and a crowbar, but who wanted a leader. Seeing that I was one of them, one said to me, "Sir, where shall we make a barricade?" I replied that there was one already to the right and another farther down, but that a third close at hand was open. Without a word they handed me the crowbar, and I prized up the stones out of the pavement, while they undertook the harder work of piling them up. In a few minutes we had a solid wall eight feet high. Field had on light kid gloves, which formed an amusing contrast to his occupation. Then remembering that there was a defenceless spot somewhere else, I marched my troop thither, and built another barricade--all in grim earnest without talking. I forgot to say that on the previous day I had witnessed a marvellously dramatic scene in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, by the market-house. There was across it an immense barricade, made of literally everything--old beds, waggons, stones, and rubbish--and it was guarded by a dense crowd of insurgents, armed or unarmed, of whom I was one. All around were at least three thousand people singing the _Marseillaise_ and the _Chant des Girondins_. There was a charge of infantry, a discharge of muskets, and fifteen fell dead, some almost touching me, while the mob around never ceased their singing, and the sounds of that tremendous and terrible chorus mingled with the dying groans and cries of the victims and the great roar of the bell of Notre Dame. It was like a scene in the opera. This very barricade has been described by Victor Hugo in detail, but not all which took place there, the whole scene being, in fact, far more dramatic or picturesque than he supposed it to have been.