The crowd had, as I say, reached the Salle des Maréchaux. The frame of the portrait of M. de Bourmont, who had recently been made a marshal, already occupied its position on one of the panels; but although the name had even been printed on the frame, the portrait had not yet been inserted. In place of the canvas, by way of substitute no doubt, there was a large piece of scarlet taffetas. This was torn down and used to make the red portion of the tricolour favours which each person wore in his buttonhole. I detached a morsel which had been diverted to this end. As I was disputing with my neighbours over this strip of stuff, I heard the sound of several gunshots. They were shooting at the portrait of the Duc de Raguse in lieu of the original. Four balls had pierced the canvas, one through the head, two in the breast and the fourth through the background of the picture. A man of the people climbed up on the shoulders of a comrade and, with his knife, cut out the portrait in the shape of a medallion; then, passing his bayonet through the breast and head, he carried it as the Roman lictors used to carry the S.P.Q.R. at their triumphs. The portrait had been painted by Gérard. I went up to the man and offered him a hundred francs for his trophy. "Oh! citizen," he said, "I would not let you have it if you offered me a thousand." Alophe Pourrat next went up to him and offered him his gun in exchange and got the portrait. He probably has it still. As I entered the library of the Duchesse de Berry, I noticed a copy of _Christine_, bound in purple morocco and stamped with the duchess's arms, lying upon a little work-table. I thought I had a right to appropriate it. I afterwards gave it to my cousin Félix Deviolaine; who has probably lost it. I had gone in by the pavilion de Flore and I went out by the pavilion Marsan. In the courtyard there was a quadrille of four men, dancing to the piping of a fife and a violin: it was an early Cancan that was being danced. They were dressed in court dress, with plumed hats, and the wardrobes of Mesdames les Duchesses d'Angoulême and de Berry had furnished the costumes for the masquerade. One of these men had a cashmere shawl on his shoulders worth quite a thousand crowns. It would have been perfectly safe to bet that he had not a five-franc piece in his pocket. By the end of the country dance the shawl was in tatters. Now, how did it come to pass that the Louvre and the Tuileries and Carrousel, with their Cuirassiers and Lancers and Swiss, their Royal Guard and artillery, with three or four thousand men in garrison besides, had been taken by four or five hundred insurgents? This is what happened.