That was probable, so we went off without scruples. I was so weak that I was obliged to lean on the arm of my two companions, and I very nearly fainted before entering the restaurant. They made me drink iced water and I revived. Everything was topsy-turvy, and we had great difficulty in getting waited on. We were engrossed in a huge fish-pie, the main dish always served in a dinner _à la Râpée,_ when we heard a volley of firing, but so peculiar in sound that we never doubted but that it was the discharge over the hearse in honour of the illustrious dead. "To the memory of General Lamarque!" I said, raising my glass. My two companions pledged me. Then we heard four or five single shots. "Oh! oh!" I exclaimed, "that is another tale altogether! Those shots sound like sport." I ran on to the quay, where I climbed up on a railing. Nothing could be made out except that there was a great commotion about the pont d'Austerlitz. "Pay quick and come and see what that music is," I said to my two companions. We flung 10 francs on the table; but, as the firing increased, we did not ask for our change, we started running towards the barrier. The sound of firing had given me back my strength. When we reached the barrier, we found it guarded by men in blouses who, on perceiving us, shouted, "_Vivent les artilleurs!_" We ran up to them. "What has been happening?" we asked. "Only that they are firing on the people, and the artillery has returned the fire; père Louis-Philippe is at his last gasp and the Republic is proclaimed. _Vive la République!"_ We looked at one another. The triumph seemed to us too complete for the short time it had taken to happen in. But this is what had actually happened, and the stage things had reached. I said that, as we left, they were about to begin the orations. Banners of every nation had been taken up on to the platform--Polish, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese waved their standards of every colour above the catafalque, and amongst them was the flag of the German Union seen floating for the first time, black and red and gold.