A considerable number of the members of the club were assembled, a few of whom witnessed, from the balcony on the Boulevart, the burning of the chairs placed there, the breaking of the lamps, and other depredations.
Some gentlemen went to the battalion of the guards stationed in front of the Prince Polignac's, and suggested to the officer in command the propriety of sending a few men to arrest the progress of the insurgents, a thing then easily to be accomplished; but the officer, having no orders, declined to take any step, and the populace continued their depredations within three hundred yards of so imposing a force as a battalion of the guards! What may not to-morrow's sun witness, ere it goes down?
But conjecture is vain in a crisis in which every thing appears to go on in a mode so wholly unaccountable.

The exhibition of a powerful force might and would, I am persuaded, have precluded the collision that has occurred between the populace and the military.

Blood has been shed on both sides, and this has rendered the breach between people and sovereign too wide to be repaired except by something almost miraculous, and alas! the time of miracles is past.
I cannot help wondering at the calmness I feel on this occasion.

I experience no personal alarm; but I am apprehensive for my friends, some of whom are deeply interested in this struggle.

How may their destinies, lately so brilliant, be overclouded by the change that menaces to take place! Well may Monsieur Salvandy have observed at the ball so recently given by the Duc of Orleans to the royal families of France and Naples, "This may be termed a Neapolitan _fete_, for they are dancing over a volcano.".