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booming reached us. The old woman started from her chair, muttering, "It
is the cannon!"
"No," said the little man, "it is the slamming of a street-door." Then
he resumed, "There now! I have finished my bread," and he dusted one
hand against the other, and went out.
In the meantime the explosions continued, and seemed to come nearer. A
noise sounded in the shop. It was the last-maker who was coming back. He
appeared on the threshold of the ambulance. He was pale.
"
Here I am," said he, "I have come to fetch you. We must go home. Let us
be off at once."
I arose from the chair where I had seated myself. "What does this mean?
Will they not come?"
"
No," he answered, "no one will come. All is at an end."
Then he hastily explained that he had gone through the whole of the
quarter in order to find a gun, that it was labor lost, that he had
spoken to "two or three," that we must abandon all hope of the
societies, that they would not come down, that what had been done
during the day had appalled every one, that the best men were terrified,
that the boulevards were "full of corpses," that the soldiers had
committed "horrors," that the barricade was about to be attacked, that
on his arrival he had heard the noise of footsteps in the direction of
the crossway, that it was the soldiers who were advancing, that we could
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