We shall soon see, however, of what they were thinking.
"The first cannon-ball, badly aimed, passed above all the barricades and killed a little boy at the Chateau d'Eau as he was drawing water from the fountain.
"The shops were shut, as were also almost all the windows.

There was, however, one window left open in an upper story of the house at the corner of Rue du Sentier.

The curious spectators continued to assemble mainly on the southern side of the street.

It was an ordinary crowd and nothing more,--men, women, children, and old people who looked upon the languid attack and defence of the barricade as a sort of sham fight.
"This barricade served as a spectacle pending the moment when it should become a pretext.
IV "The soldiers had been firing, and the defenders of the barricade returning their fire, for about a quarter of an hour, without any one being wounded on either side, when suddenly, as if by an electric shock, an extraordinary and threatening movement took place, first in the infantry, then in the cavalry.

The troops suddenly faced about.
"The historiographers of the _coup d'etat_ have asserted that a shot, directed against the soldiers, was fired from the window which had remained open at the corner of Rue du Sentier.