after the hostages.” While he is talking, I try to see what is going on in the Place de l’Hôtel de Ville. Two or three thousand Federals are there, some seated, some lying on the ground. A lively discussion is going on. Several little barrels are standing about on chairs; the men are continually getting up and crowding round the barrels, some have no glasses, but drink in the palms of their hands. Women walk up and down in bands, gesticulating wildly. The men shout, the women shriek. Mounted expresses gallop out of the Hôtel, some in the direction of the Bastille, some towards the Place de la Concorde. The latter fly past us crying out, “All’s well!” A man comes out on the balcony of the Hôtel de Ville and addresses the crowd. All the Federals start to their feet enthusiastically.—“That’s Vallès,” says my neighbour to me. I had already recognised him. I frequently saw him in the students’ quarter in a little _crémerie_ in the Rue Serpente. He was given to making verses, rather bad ones by-the-bye; I remember one in particular, a panegyric on a green coat. They used to say he had a situation in the _pompes funèbres_.[103] His face even then wore a bitter and violent expression. He left poetry for journalism, and then journalism for politics. [Illustration: Jules Vallès, Commissioner Of Public instruction[104]] To-day he is spouting forth at a window of the Hôtel de Ville. I cannot catch a word of what he says; but as he retires he is wildly applauded. Such applause pains me sadly. I feel that these men and these women are mad for blood, and will know how to die. Alas! how many dead and dying already! neither the cannonading nor the musketry has ceased an instant. I now see a number of women walk out of the Hôtel, the crowd makes room for them to pass. They come our way. They are dressed in black, and have black crape tied round their arms and a red cockade in their bonnets. My friend the officer tells me that they are the governesses who have taken the places of the nuns. Then he walks up to them and says, “Have you succeeded?”—“Yes,” answers one of them, “here is our commission. The school children are to be employed in making sacks and filling them with earth, the eldest ones to load the rifles behind the barricades. They will receive rations like National Guards, and a pension will be given to the mothers of those who die for the Republic. They are mad to fight, I assure you. We have made them work hard during the last month, this will be their holiday!” The woman who says this is young and pretty, and speaks with a sweet smile on her lips. I shudder. Suddenly two staff officers appear and ride furiously up to the Hôtel de Ville; they have come from the Place Vendôme. An instant later and the trumpets sound. The companies form in the Place, and great agitation reigns in the Hôtel. Men rush in and out. The officers who are in the café where I am get up instantly, and go to take their places at the head of their men. A rumour spreads that the