What Happened During the Night — The Rue Tiquetonne
Just as Mathieu de la Dr?me had said, “You are under King Bomba,” Charles Gambon entered. He sank down upon a chair and muttered, “It is horrible.” Bancel followed him. “We have come from it,” said Bancel. Gambon had been able to shelter himself in the recess of a doorway. In front of Barbedienne’s alone he had counted thirty-seven corpses. What was the meaning of it all? To what purpose was this monstrous promiscuous murder? No one could understand it. The Massacre was a riddle.
We were in the Sphinx’s Grotto.
Labrousse came in. It was urgently necessary that we should leave Dupont White’s house. It was on the point of being surrounded. For some moments the Rue Monthabor, ordinarily so deserted, was becoming thronged with suspicious figures. Men seemed to be attentively watching number Eleven. Some of these men, who appeared to be acting in concert, belonged to the ex-“Club of Clubs,” which, owing to the manoeuvres of the Reactionists, exhaled a vague odor of the police. It was necessary that we should disperse. Labrousse said to us, “I have just seen Longe-pied roving about.”
We separated. We went away one by one, and each in his own direction. We did not know where we should meet again, or whether we should meet again. What was going to happen and what was about to become of us all? No one knew. We were filled with a terrible dread.
I turned up towards the Boulevards, anxious to see what was taking place.
What was taking place I have just related.
Bancel and Versigny had rejoined me.
As I left the Boulevards, mingled with the whirl of the terrified crowd, not knowing where I was going, returning towards the centre of Paris, a voice suddenly whispered in my ear, “There is something over there which you ought to see.” I recognized the voice. It was the voice of E.P.
E.P. is a dramatic author, a man of talent, for whom under Louis Philippe I had procured exemption from military service. I had not seen him for four or five years. I met him again in this tumult. He spoke to me as though we had seen each other yesterday. Such are these times of bewilderment. There is no time to greet each other “according to the rules of society.” One speaks as though all were in full flight.
“Ah! it is you!” I exclaimed. “What do you want with me?”
He answered me, “I live in a house over there.”
And he added,-
“Come.”
He drew me into a dark street. We could hear explosions. At the bottom of the street could be seen the ruins of a barricade. Versigny and Bancel, as I have just said, were with me. E.P. turned to them.
“These gentlemen can come,” said he.
I asked him,—
“What street is this?”
“The Rue Tiquetonne.”
We followed him.
I have elsewhere told this tragical event.26
E.P. stopped before a tall and gloomy house. He pushed open a street-door which was not shut, then another door and we entered into a parlor perfectly quiet and lighted by a lamp.
This room appeared to adjoin a shop. At the end could be distinguished two beds side by side, one large and one small. Above the little bed hung a woman’s portrait, and above the portrait a branch of holy box-tree.
