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"
Afterwards we shall go in a body to the Palace of the Assembly; we will
force our way in spite of all resistance, and from the top of the steps
we will read out the decree of deposition to the soldiers."
"Very good, we will join you," said Mare Dufraisse.
The five members of the Left marched at some distance from the column.
Several of their friends who were mingled with the members of the Right
rejoined them; and we may here mention a fact without giving it more
importance than it possesses, namely, that the two fractions of the
Assembly represented in this unpremeditated gathering marched towards the
Mairie without being mingled together; one on each side of the street. It
chanced that the men of the majority kept on the right side of the
street, and the men of the minority on the left.
No one had a scarf of office. No outward token caused them to be
recognized. The passers-by stared at them with surprise, and did not
understand what was the meaning of this procession of silent men through
the solitary streets of the Faubourg St. Germain. One district of Paris
was as yet unaware of the coup d'état.
Strategically speaking, from a defensive point of view, the Mairie of
the tenth Arrondissement was badly chosen. Situated in a narrow street
in that short section of the Rue de Grenelle-St.-Germain which lies
between the Rue des Saints-Pères and the Rue du Sépulcre, close by the
cross-roads of the Croix-Rouge, where the troops could arrive from so
many different points, the Mairie of the Tenth Arrondissement, confined,
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