I had gone back home, called my servant Joseph and told him to put me out my complete shooting costume. It was the most suitable and convenient for the form of exercise to which we were going to apply our energies; also, more important still, it was the least conspicuous. I was half-way through my toilet when I heard a great uproar in the rue du Bac and rushed to my window: it came from Étienne Arago and Gauja, who were calling the people to arms. It will be remembered that I lived above the café Desmares; but I forgot to mention that three of my windows looked into the rue du Bac. At that moment, two mounted policemen appeared from the bridge side, at the entrance of the street. Why had they come there? What chance had brought them? We did not know at all. When the crowd which filled the street caught sight of them, loud cries were set up. Thereupon, the policemen seemed to confer together; but, if they hesitated, it was only for a moment: they took their bridles between their teeth, drew their sabres in one hand and held their pistols in the other. The crowd was unarmed and ran into side alleys or open shops or made off down the rue de Lille. Arago and Gauja hid in corners of the street: one of them (I do not know which) cried to the other-- "Come! it is time to begin!" At the same moment, the two policemen pounced upon them at full gallop. Two reports and flashes of firing came simultaneously from Étienne and Gauja. Both had aimed at the same man and he fell pierced by both bullets. They rushed to the gendarme stretched on the ground. He was dying. The other policeman turned back. The riderless horse went its own way and disappeared down the rue du Bac. They took his sabre, pistol and powder-box from him and carried him to la Charité. When it was seen that a wounded policeman was being brought into the hospital and they learnt that he had been wounded because he charged at the people, the patients were for finishing him off. The spirit of revolution had actually penetrated into the hospitals! Meanwhile, I had put on my jacket, picked up my gun, game-bag and powder-horn, stuffed my pockets with shot and I gone downstairs. Arago and Gauja had both disappeared. I was known in the district and people collected round me. "What must be done?" they inquired. "Put up barricades!" I replied. "Where?" "One at each end of the rue de l'Université; the other across the rue du Bac." They brought me a crowbar and I set to the task by beginning to unpave the street. Everybody clamoured for arms. While this was going on drums were beating in the Tuileries garden. Three soldiers of the Garde Royale appeared at the ii top of the rue du Bac, from the direction of the rue Saint-Thomas-d'Aquin. "Look here!" I said to those surrounding me, "you are asking for arms? Nothing could be more opportune. See! here are three rifles coming towards you; the only thing you have to do is to take them...." "Oh, if that is all!" they said.