They are not here to-day. In their places are the soldiers who watch over the safety of the representatives of the people. Luckily it is wet, and the crowds outside cower and huddle under a camp of umbrellas. Your persistent drizzle is a terrible enemy to revolution. There is nothing like it for putting a damper on noisy out-of-door agitation. But the occasion is a great one, and though the clouds seem to have been transformed into tanks with bottoms pepper-castored with leaks, and never tire of the weary drip-drip, the citizens of Madrid bravely affront the weather and collect on the sloppy approaches to the Palace of the Congress to discuss the affairs of the commonwealth. They look resolute enough to go under a shower-bath in the interest of their country. Patiently they stand, with knit brows, their soaked mantles clinging to their persons, while the Deputies drive or walk up, and enter to take part in the important discussion at hand--the discussion which is to decide whether there are to be barricades in Madrid and in all the great cities, and some widows the more in Spain within four-and-twenty hours. Denser grow the throngs and livelier the excitement, for all the rain. Reports the most eccentric and alarming are bandied about. The people have burned down the churches in Malaga; but Malagueño, "as everybody knows," remarks a French journalist, "is the synonym for _méchant_." In another knot a rumour circulates that a meeting of Radicals had been held the evening previous, at which the German, Austrian, and Italian ambassadors were present, and that they spoke of the necessity of a joint intervention to assist in the restoration of peace. This senseless rumour was believed by some fools, and the Radicals who were supposed to be ready to open the door to the foreigner were cursed and hissed, or howled at, as they stepped into the Palace. Word passes that the Intransigentes are in arms in the lower quarters of the town, and have taken up "strategic points" in view of any emergency that may arise. If the Government is beaten they mean to raise the red flag, to occupy the theatres as they did once before, to turn the Plaza Santa Ana and the Plazuela de Anton Martin into head-quarters, and, if necessary, to march on the Parliament-house and make an example of those traitorous Radicals who would betray the people and bring back the Monarchy. Law-fearing Madrid is in a state of wan terror, and thanks Providence for that thrice-blessed rain. The men who compose the noisy groups belong to the lower classes; they are not very numerous, but they are very determined. The active demonstration is confined to a nucleus of some one hundred and fifty persons. Delegates occasionally arrive from distant parts of the town, whisper to comrades in the mob, and depart. It is known that the troops are confined to barracks, that a hundred picked men of the Guardia Civil have reinforced the garrison of the Palace of Congress,