And as a measure of precaution the house was guarded day and night alike by a perfect army of plain-clothes officers.

Then another article contained an amazing piece of invention.
Some anarchists, after carrying barrels of powder into a sewer near the Madeleine, were said to have undermined the whole district, planning a perfect volcano there, into which one half of Paris would sink.

And at another time it was alleged that the police were on the track of a terrible plot which embraced all Europe, from the depths of Russia to the shores of Spain.

The signal for putting it into execution was to be given in France, and there would be a three days' massacre, with grape shot sweeping everyone off the Boulevards, and the Seine running red, swollen by a torrent of blood.

Thanks to these able and intelligent devices of the Press, terror now reigned in the city; frightened foreigners fled from the hotels _en masse_; and Paris had become a mere mad-house, where the most idiotic delusions at once found credit.
It was not all this, however, that worried Guillaume.