"Besides," said Delanoue, "it is on the place de l'Odéon people are collecting." "Ah! you will lend us your tricolour flag, Harel, won't you?" "What tricolour flag do you mean?" "The one under which they have been singing the _Marseillaise_ at your theatre for the last three days." "What am I to do, then?" "You will make an announcement to the public, telling them that I carried it away to Rambouillet.... The public is good-natured enough, and will do without the flag for a day or two." "Come along and get it ... you know very well the whole theatre is at your service." Whenever Harel wanted to get a play out of me, he always made this remark. My gun had been washed and rubbed and dried in the sun; I took it, we got into the cab and set off for the Odéon. There were two or three thousand persons in the square and its vicinity. I had scarcely put my foot to the ground, leaving Delanoue inside the cab, before I was surrounded by a score of men, calling me by my name and asking me to put myself at their head. They were the scene-shifters belonging to the Odéon, who still had in warm remembrance the tips I had given them when _Christine_ was being performed. I told one of them to go and find the flag, and whilst we left the cab under the protection of others (to whom I sent out seven or eight bottles of wine to keep up their patience) we went and had breakfast at Risbeck's. By the time we came out of the restaurant our troop was further augmented by a drummer. I have remarked before with what rapidity drummers multiply during times of revolution. We got into our cab, naturally taking the seat of honour; then everybody else crushed inside with us, or outside on the box with the driver, some behind, some on the shafts, and some on the imperial. The unlucky horses started, dragging nineteen people! Most of my men were only armed with pikes. At the corner of the rue du Bac and the quay, a man who seemed to be posted there on duty for this purpose shouted after us-- "Have you any arms?" "No!" replied most of my men. "Well! arms are being distributed at the Palais-Royal." "To the Palais-Royal!" cried the men. "To the Palais-Royal." The cab crossed the place du Carrousel and made its way towards the Palais-Royal. Traffic was becoming possible once more, little by little the barricades had disappeared and the paving stones had somehow or other been laid down again. We reached the Palais-Royal. "One moment," I said; "order, if you please! I am known here, and, if there is any chance of obtaining anything, I shall have it." We went into a low room, which was packed with people. As I went in, I knocked against a student of the École who was going out. "Is that you, Charles?" "Yes.... Have you come to get arms?" "Of course." "In that case, you had better hurry up. I have only been able to get a pistol." He had a pistol stuck into his coat, the butt end projecting between two buttons. "You are going there too?" "Why, of course!"