and when that was impossible, the glass frames were withdrawn, and bed-mattresses and tables placed in the spaces. Along the parapets, also, vast crowds of armed men were to be seen, and the tower and battlements of St. Roch were studded over with soldiers of the National Guard, all armed and in readiness. From the glances of the artillerymen beneath to the groups above, it required no great prescience to detect that they stood opposed to each other as enemies. It was a calm mellow evening of the late autumn. The air was perfectly still; and now the silence was unbroken on all sides, save when, from a distance, the quick tramp of cavalry might be momentarily heard, as if in the act of forcing back a crowd; and then a faint shout would follow, whose accents might mean triumph or defiance. I was already beginning to weary of expectancy, when I perceived, from the movement on the house-tops and the church tower, that something was going forward within the view of those stationed there. I had not to look long for the cause, for suddenly the harsh, sharp beat of a drum was heard, and immediately after the head of a column wheeled from one of the side streets into the Rue St. Honoré. They were grenadiers of the National Guard, and a fine body of men they seemed, as they marched proudly forward till they came to a halt before the steps of St. Roch. Handkerchiefs were waved in salutation to them from windows and housetops, and cheering followed them as they went. A single figure at the entrance of La Dauphine stood observing them with his glass: he was an artillery officer, and took a long and leisurely survey of the troops, and then directed his eyes towards the crowded roofs, which he swept hastily with his telescope. This done, he sauntered carelessly back, and disappeared.