Young Boishue and my schoolfellow Saint-Riveul had been killed in these encounters, on their way to the chamber of the nobles: the former was in vain defended by his father, who served as his second[307]. Reader, pause: see flow the first drops of blood which the Revolution was to shed. Heaven decreed that they should issue from the veins of a companion of my childhood. Suppose that I had fallen instead of Saint-Riveul; it would have been said of me, merely changing the name, as was said of the victim with whom commenced the great immolation: "A gentleman called Chateaubriand was killed on his way to the assembly-room of the States." Those few words would have taken the place of my long history. Would Saint-Riveul have played my part on the earth? Was he destined for fame or for silence? And now, reader, pass on; cross the river of blood which for all time separates the old world, whence you are issuing, from the new, at the entrance to which you shall die. * The year 1789, so famous in our history and in the history of the human race, found me on the moors of my Brittany; I was not even able to leave the country until rather late, and did not reach Paris until after the sack of the Maison Reveillon[308], the opening of the States-General[309], the constitution of the Third Estate into a National Assembly, the oath of the Tennis Court[310], the Royal Speech of the 23rd of June, and the joining of the clergy and the nobles to the commons[311]. There was a great stir along my road: in the villages the peasants stopped the carriages, asked to be shown passports, interrogated the travelers. The nearer we approached to the capital, the more the excitement increased. Passing through Versailles, I saw troops quartered in the orangery, trains of artillery parked in the court-yards, the provisional hall of the National Assembly erected on the Place du Palais, and deputies moving to and fro amid sight-seers, people of the palace, and soldiers. [Sidenote: Disturbances in Paris.] In Paris the streets were blocked by crowds standing before the bakers' shops; the passers-by stood discussing at the street corners, the tradesmen came out of their shops and gave and received the news before their doors; the agitators gathered together at the Palais-Royal: Camille Desmoulins began to distinguish himself in the throng[312]. I had scarcely alighted[313], together with Madame de Farcy and Madame Lucile, at a lodging-house in the Rue de Richelieu, when a riot broke out: the mob proceeded to the Abbaye to deliver some French Guards, who had been imprisoned by order of their officers. The non-commissioned officers of an artillery regiment quartered at the Invalides joined the people. The defection of the army was commencing.