"The soldiers are taking the mob at its rear," said Lebeau, calmly; "we have not a moment to lose--this way," and he plunged into a dismal court, then into a labyrinth of lanes, followed mechanically by Rameau. They issued at last on the Boulevards, in which the usual loungers were quietly sauntering, wholly unconscious of the riot elsewhere. "Now, take that _fiacre_ and go home; write down your impressions of what you have seen, and take your MS. to M. de Mauleon." Lebeau here quitted him. Meanwhile all happened as Lebeau had predicted. The _sergens de ville_ showed themselves in front of the barricades, a small troop of mounted soldiers appeared in the rear. The mob greeted the first with yells and a shower of stones; at the sight of the last they fled in all directions; and the _sergens de ville_, calmly scaling the barricades, carried off in triumph, as prisoners of war, 4 gamins, 3 women, and 1 Irishman loudly protesting innocence, and shrieking "Murther!" So ended the first inglorious rise against the plebiscite and the Empire, on the 14th of May, 1870. From Isaura Cicogna to Madame de Grantmesnil. Saturday. May 21. "I am still, dearest Eulalie, under the excitement of impressions wholly new to me. I have this day witnessed one of those scenes which take us out of our private life, not into the world of fiction, but of history, in which we live as in the life of a nation. You know how intimate I have become with Valerie Duplessis. She is in herself so charming in her combination of petulant wilfulness and guileless _naivete_, that she might sit as a model for one of your exquisite heroines. Her father, who is in great favour at Court, had tickets for the _Salle des Etats_ of the Louvre today--when, as the journals will tell you, the results of the _plebiscite_ were formally announced to the Emperor--and I accompanied him and Valerie. I felt, on entering the hall, as if I had been living for months in an atmosphere of false rumours, for those I chiefly meet in the circles of artists and men of letters, and the wits and _flaneurs_ who haunt such circles, are nearly all hostile to the Emperor. They agree, at least, in asserting the decline of his popularity--the failure of his intellectual powers; in predicting his downfall--deriding the notion of a successor in his son. Well, I know not how to reconcile these statements with the spectacle I have beheld to-day. "In the chorus of acclamation amidst which the Emperor entered the hall, it seemed as if one heard the voice of the France he had just appealed to. If the Fates are really weaving woe and shame in his woof, it is in hues which, to mortal eyes, seem brilliant with glory and joy. "You will read the address of the President of the _Corps Legislatif_; I wonder how it will strike you! I own fairly that me it wholly carried away. At each sentiment I murmured to myself, 'Is not this true? and, if true, are France and human nature ungrateful?'