They pretended to avoid the shedding of blood, and chose the surest means of shedding it in torrents. My friend agreed with me that next to the hideous stand of the battalions of the line that had entered into a pact with the mob, nothing could be more disastrous than the inexplicable compromise entered into by these mayors and deputies. There was not a day on which I did not apply to them the dilemma that I formerly applied to the government of the emperor in the _guêt-à-pens_ of Castelfidardo: “Either dupes or accomplices.”[41] At five o’clock, an old deputy who had been brutally excluded from the legislative body in the favorable time of official candidature, because he would not renounce his opinions of freedom and control, gave me some interesting details respecting the pacific manifestations that had just met with an unhoped-for success. A great number of citizens, of all ages and of every rank, had traversed the principal quarters unarmed, crying, “_Vive l’Ordre! Vive la France! Vive l’Assemblée Nationale!_” They everywhere meet with cordial sympathy. The battalion that guarded the Bourse presented arms as they passed. The battalions of the faubourgs, that held the Place Vendôme, endeavored in vain to prevent their passing, and the person who from the balcony of the staff wished to address them in order to justify the insurrectionary movement, was interrupted by enthusiastic acclamations in favor of order and the national assembly. The central committee at the Hôtel de Ville understood so well the bearing of this manifestation that they hastened to take energetic measures to remain masters of the Place Vendôme, and not to allow in it any new manifestations from the friends of order. They sent thither several battalions. Travel was forbidden there and in the neighboring streets; the approaches were rigorously guarded: four pieces of cannon, with cannoneers ready to fire, were set up in the Rue de la Paix and the Rue Castiglione. At nine o’clock, the wife of one of the employees of the minister of 130 justice came to beg me to carry to her brother the final consolations of religion. I had seen him some days previous, and his end seemed near. It was with the greatest difficulty she had left the Ministère and the Place Vendôme, and she feared it would be impossible for me to return with her. But, unwilling her brother should die without the sacraments of the church, she succeeded by her prayers and tears in reaching me, and was willing to brave everything again in order to enable me to go to him. I assured her I would unite my efforts to hers, and, though conscious that the ecclesiastical costume had, since the downfall of the empire, been disagreeable to the Parisian revolutionists, I added that we should succeed. I set out that very instant with one of the employees of the church.