The barricade was a low one. Another, narrow and high, protected it in the street. The sun shone upon and brightened the chimney-tops. The tortuous Rue Saint Antoine wound before us in sinister solitude. The soldiers were lying upon the barricade, which was little more than three feet high. Their rifles were stacked between the projecting paving-stones as though in a rack. Now and then bullets whistled overhead and struck the walls of the houses around us, bringing down a shower of stone and plaster. Occasionally a blouse, sometimes a cap-covered head, appeared at the corner of a street. The soldiers promptly fired at it. When they hit their mark they applauded “Good! Well aimed! Capital!” They laughed and chatted gaily. At intervals there was a rattle and roar, and a hail of bullets rained upon the barricade from roofs and windows. A very tall captain with a grey moustache stood erect at the centre of the barrier, above which half his body towered. The bullets pattered about him as about a target. He was impassible and serene and spoke to his men in this wise: “There, children, they are firing. Lie down. Look out, Laripaud, you are showing your head. Reload!” All at once a woman turned the corner of a street. She came leisurely towards the barricade. The soldiers swore and shouted to her to get out of the way: “Ah! the strumpet! Will you get out of that you w--! Shake a leg, damn you! She’s coming to reconnoitre. She’s a spy! Bring her down. Down with the moucharde!” The captain restrained them: “Don’t shoot, it’s a woman!” After advancing about twenty paces the woman, who really did seem to be observing us, entered a low door which closed behind her. This one was saved. At 11 o’clock I returned from the barrier in the Place Baudoyer and took my usual place in the Assembly. A Representative whom I did not know, but who I have since learned was M. Belley, engineer, residing in the Rue des Tournelles, came and sat beside me and said: “Monsieur Victor Hugo, the Place Royale has been burned. They set fire to your house. The insurgents entered by the little door in the Cul-de-sac Guéménée.” “And my family?” I inquired. “They are safe.” “How do you know?” “I have just come from there. Not being known I was able to get over the barricades and make my way here. Your family first took refuge in the Mairie. I was there, too. Seeing that the danger was over I advised Mme. Victor Hugo to seek some other asylum. She found shelter with her children in the home of a chimney-sweep named Martignon who lives near your house, under the arcades.” I knew that worthy Martignon family. This reassured me. “And how about the riot?” I asked. “It is a revolution,” replied M. Belley. “The insurgents are in control of Paris at this moment.” I left M. Belley and hurriedly traversed the few rooms that separated the hall in which we held our sessions and the office occupied by the Executive Committee.