Many an honest citizen went to bed on the seventeenth of March full of hope. He saw Paris marching with quick steps towards the re-establishment of its business, and the resumption of its usual aspect; the emigrants and foreigners would arrive in crowds, their pockets overflowing with gold to make purchases and put the industry of Paris under contributions the French and foreign bankers will rival each other to pay the indemnity of five milliards. The dream of good M. Prudhomme[4] was, however, somewhat clouded by the figure of the Buttes Montmartre bristling with cannon; but the number of guards had become so diminished, and they seemed so tired of the business, that it appeared as if they were about to quit for good. The following chapter will inform you what were the waking thoughts of the Parisians on the morning of the eighteenth of March. [Illustration: THE GENIUS OF THE RED FLAG.] NOTES: [1] Memoir, see Appendix I. [2] The police had seized, some time before, in Paris, ten thousand Orsini bombs, and hundreds of others of a new construction, charged with fulminating mercury. [3] The eight gigantic female figures, representing the principal towns of France: Strasbourg, Lille, Metz, &c., &c. [4] “Joseph Prudhomme” is the typical representative of the Parisian middle-class (_Bourgeois_); the honest simple father of family, peaceful but patriotic, proud of his country and ready to die for it. [Illustration: Purification of the Champs Élysées—After The Departure of the Prussians Mar 1871. Building A Barricade. March 18. 1871.] I. Listen! What does that mean? Is it a transient squall or the first gust of a tempest? Is it due to nature or to man’s agency; is it an émeute or the advent of a revolution that is to overturn everything? Such were my reflections when awakened, on the 18th of March, 1871, at about four in the morning, by a noise due to the tramp of many feet. From my window, in the gloomy white fog, I could see detachments of soldiers walking under the walls, proceeding slowly, wrapped in their grey capotes; a soft drizzling rain falling at the time. Half awake, I descended to the street in time to interrogate two soldiers passing in the rear.