of the dove, and I was bringing anything but an olive branch back with me; but I was able to reassure her about her husband and son: both were safe and sound and would return home as soon as the protest had been drawn up. We say _drawn up_, instead of _signed_, because the question whether the protest should be signed or not was debated for a long time. Some asserted that there was an unplumbed force in the press which was increased by a mystery. These urged that it should not be signed. Others, on the contrary, declared that it would be much better to make the act of opposition a public one, and to sign the protest with names in full. It was a singular thing that it was MM. Baude and Coste, two bold sportsmen, who wanted to preserve anonymity; and M. Thiers, the cautious politician, who wished it to be signed openly. The opinion of M. Thiers carried the day. By midnight the last page of the protest was covered with forty-five signatures. They were those of MM. Gauja, Thiers, Mignet, Carrel, Chambolle, Peysse, Albert Stapfer, Dubochet and Rolle, of the _National_; Leroux, Guizard, Dejean and de Rémusat, of the _Globe_; Senty, Haussman, Dussart, Busoni, Barbaroux, Chalas, Billard, Baude and Coste, of the _Temps_; Guyet, Moussette, Avenel, Alexis de Jussieu, Châtelain, Dupont and de la Pelouze, of the _Courrier français_; Année, Cauchois-Lemaire and Évariste Dumoulin, of the _Constitutionnel_; Sarrans junior, of the _Courrier de Électeurs_; August Fabre and Ader, of the _Tribune des départements_; Levasseur, Plagnol and Fazy, of the _Révolution_; Larreguy and Bert, of the _Journal du Commerce_; Léon Pillet, of the _Journal de Paris_; Bohain and Roqueplan, of the _Figaro_; Vaillant, of the _Sylphe._ Lest my readers should be surprised at my giving here all the forty-five names, I would point out that they were the names of forty-five men all of whom risked their heads by signing. While I, who risked nothing at all, but would have asked nothing better than to run some such risk, simply returned to my rooms at eleven o'clock, after first taking care to go and give news of myself at No. 7 rue de l'Université. They thought I had left for Algiers! CHAPTER III The morning of July 27--Visit to my mother--Paul Foucher-_Amy Robsart_--Armand Carrel--The office of the _Temps_--Baude--The Commissary of Police--The three locksmiths--The office of the _National_--Cadet Gassicourt--Colonel Gourgaud--M. de Rémusat--Physiognomy of the passers-by