There was no difference between this patrol and the preceding, except that it was more actively vigilant. The chief of the national guards that formed it, and who seemed surprised to behold me, having asked where I was going, and what I was going to do, sent two men to conduct me to the post that guarded the entrance to the Place Vendôme. During the siege of Paris, I one day passed along the formidable defences of the Point-du-Jour at Auteuil. The consigne there was of a different degree of mildness and condescension from that at the entrance of the Place Vendôme, which the insurgents evidently wished to make their headquarters, and where they were entrenching themselves. The national guards that defended the entrance were less blustering, but more numerous and more decided, than those of the evening before. They allowed me to pass without hindrance; many of them must have felt that where the dead and dying are to be found is the proper place for a minister of Jesus Christ. A sentinel was ordered to accompany me to the Ministère de la Justice, where I intended to go first. He possessed neither the intelligence nor the politeness of the national guard that escorted me the night before. He was rather an animated machine than a man. Not a word, not a gesture, not a change in his features! After wondering what he was thinking of, I ended by doubting if he thought at all. I should render him this justice--that, from a material point of view, he discharged his commission with irreproachable exactitude. I experienced an undefinable impression in the Place Vendôme, produced by a twofold contrast, the remembrance of which will not be effaced to the latest moment of my life. This Place, with which Louis XIV. adorned Paris, was first called the Place des Conquêtes, to recall the brilliant victories which had secured to France the fine provinces which we have just lost a large part of, after most lamentable reverses. The sumptuous edifices, built according to Mansard’s plans, which form the contour, render it in an architectural point of view the finest Place in Europe. Destined by Louis XIV. to bring together the royal library and imprimerie, the academies, the mint, and the hôtel of foreign ambassadors; now 137 inhabited by wealthy families, rich travellers, and some of the government officials; situated between the garden of the Tuileries and the Boulevards des Capucines and des Italiens; entered at its two extremities by the Rues de Castiglione and de la Paix, through which pour wealthy merchants and elegant promenaders, it became on the twenty-second of March the theatre of uproar and civil war: it was covered with blood, and occupied by an armed crowd, in which prevailed the most sinister faces from the worst quarters of Paris.