"As the 1st Regiment of Lancers, commanded by Colonel Rochefort, reached a point abreast of Rue Taitbout, a numerous crowd covered the pavement of the boulevard. They were residents of the quarter, tradesmen, artists, journalists, and among them several young mothers leading their children by the hand. As the regiment was passing, men and women--every one--cried: '_Vive la Constitution!_' _'Vive la Loi!_' '_Vive la Republique!_' Colonel Rochefort,--the same who had presided at the banquet given on the 31st of October, 1851, at the Ecole Militaire, by the 1st Regiment of Lancers to the 7th Regiment of Lancers, and who, at this banquet, had proposed as a toast, 'Prince Louis-Napoleon, the head of the State, the personification of that order of which we are the defenders!'--this colonel, when the crowd uttered the above perfectly lawful cry, spurred his horse into the midst of them through the chairs on the sidewalk, while the Lancers precipitated themselves after him, and men, women, and children were indiscriminately cut down. 'A great number remained dead on the spot,' says a defender of the _coup d'etat_; and adds, 'It was done in a moment.'[1] [1] Captain Mauduit, _Revolution Militaire du 2 Decembre_, p. 217. "About two o'clock, two howitzers were pointed at the extremity of Boulevard Poissonniere, a hundred and fifty paces from the little advanced barricade at the Bonne Nouvelle guard-house. While placing the guns in position, two of the artillerymen, who are not often guilty of a false manoevre, broke the pole of a caisson. '_Don't you see they are drunk!_' exclaimed a man of the lower classes. "At half past two, for it is necessary to follow the progress of this hideous drama minute by minute, and step by step, fire was opened before the barricade languidly, and almost as if done for amusement. The officers appeared to be thinking of anything but a fight. We shall soon see, however, of what they were thinking. "The first cannon-ball, badly aimed, passed above all the barricades and killed a little boy at the Chateau d'Eau as he was drawing water from the fountain. "The shops were shut, as were also almost all the windows. There was, however, one window left open in an upper story of the house at the corner of Rue du Sentier. The curious spectators continued to assemble mainly on the southern side of the street. It was an ordinary crowd and nothing more,--men, women, children, and old people who looked upon the languid attack and defence of the barricade as a sort of sham fight. "This barricade served as a spectacle pending the moment when it should become a pretext. IV "The soldiers had been firing, and the defenders of the barricade returning their fire, for about a quarter of an hour, without any one being wounded on either side, when suddenly, as if by an electric shock, an extraordinary and threatening movement took place, first in the infantry, then in the cavalry. The troops suddenly faced about.