Whilst these lads did no more than shout, the soldiers kept their patience, but stones soon followed the shoutings. A soldier, hit by a stone, fired, and a woman fell--a woman of about thirty. Cries of "Murder!" went up and, in a second, the square was emptied, lights were extinguished and shops closed. The théâtre des Nouveautés alone remained lighted and open,--they were playing _la Chatte blanche_,--and those inside the house had no idea what was going on outside. A small troop of about twelve men appeared, at that moment, from the rue des Filles-Saint-Thomas. It was headed by Étienne Arago and was shouting-- "Stop the play! Close the theatres! They are killing people in the streets of Paris!..." It stumbled against the body of the woman who had been killed. "Carry this corpse to the steps of the peristyle, so that everybody can see it," said Étienne; "I am going to have the theatre emptied." And, as a matter of fact, the place was emptied an instant later, the stream of spectators, on coming out, spreading apart as a torrent does before a rock, so as to avoid trampling upon the body. I ran to Arago. "What are they doing," I asked. "What has been decided?" "Nothing yet.... Barricades are being erected ... and women killed and theatres closed, as you see." "Where shall I find you again?" "To-morrow morning at my house, No. 10 rue de Grammont." Then, turning to the men who were with him-- "To the Variétés, my friends!" he said; "to close the theatres is to hoist the black flag over Paris!" And the little crowd disappeared with him down the rue de Montmorency. It had passed before the sentinel and the barracks without producing any sign. And this was how the movement had begun and from whence the firing had come that Carrel and I had heard. Étienne Arago (I hope I may be pardoned for always quoting the same name, but I will engage to prove, beyond exception, that Étienne Arago was the mainspring of the insurrectional movement), Étienne Arago, I say, had just been dining with Desvergers and Varin and had returned with them to the Vaudeville theatre, which was then in the rue de Chartres, when a mob barred their way in the rue Saint-Honoré, in front of the Delorme passage. They were saying that a man had been killed in the rue du Lycée. A cart, loaded with rubble, was waiting to pass, as soon as the mob had dispersed; four or five carriages, stopped by the same obstruction, were waiting too, in file. "Excuse me, my friend," Étienne said to the driver, unharnessing the horse from the shafts; "we require your cart." "What for?" "To make a barricade with, to be sure!" "Yes, yes, barricades--let us have barricades!" exclaimed several voices. And, in the twinkling of an eye, the horses were detached, the cart thrown on its side and the contents piled up across the street. "Good!" said Arago. "Now you won't need me any more; I am wanted elsewhere."