Now, Lamarque was both a strong man and a far-seeing one; so they did not give him time to arrive on the scene of civil war. It was to these circumstances I owed the honour of coming in contact with General Lamarque and of not being forgotten by the family at the time of rendering the last honours to the conqueror of Caprée. I went to tell my friends Bastide and Godefroy Cavaignac of my appointment, and asked them if they had arranged anything for the morrow. They had a meeting at Étienne Arago's for the same evening, who, as I have previously said, was lieutenant in the 12th Legion of Artillery, and who, in case of a triumphant insurrection, was designed by a secret organisation to be mayor of the first arrondissement; the son of the noted barrister Bernard (of Rennes), was his associate. Arago lived in Bernard's house, which was at the corner of the place and rue des Pyramides. Nothing was settled at this meeting; no sort of plan was drawn up or scheme fixed upon: each one was left to his own devices to act according to circumstances. Nevertheless, the detachment of artillery commanded for the funeral cortège appeared armed at the house of mourning and provided themselves with cartridges. On 5 June, the day fixed for the funeral, I went at eight in the morning to the general's house, in the faubourg Saint-Honoré. In my capacity as steward I had no rifle, nor, consequently, any cartridges. There were already, by eight o'clock, over three thousand persons in front of the house. I saw a group of young people who were preparing a kind of ammunition-waggon with ropes. I went up to them and asked them what they were busy with. "They were arranging the ropes," they replied, "with which to draw the funeral car." At the same time, they informed me that General Lamarque's body was lying in state in his sleeping-room and that people were defiling past the bed of state. I went and put myself in the queue and filed past in my turn. The general in full uniform was laid on his bed, with his gloved-hand on his bare sword; he had a fine head, and his dignity was increased by the majesty of death. Those who passed by did so in silence and veneration, stooping as they reached the foot of the bed and sprinkling holy water on the corpse with a bough of laurel. I passed by as the rest did and went back into the street again. I was extremely weak from the effect of the cholera, I had lost all my appetite and scarcely ate an ounce of bread a day. The day promised to be a fatiguing one: so I went into my friend Hiraux's, whose café was, as we know, at the corner of the rues Royale and Saint-Honoré, and I waited until the time for departure, trying to take a cup of chocolate. At eleven, a rolling of drums called me to my post. They had just brought down the coffin under the great gate, shrouded with black. All the various elements which go to the formation of a funeral procession rolled along the rue and faubourg Saint Honoré--National Guards, workmen, artillerymen,