Half-an-hour elapsed while the soldiers were forming a line, and while the Commissaries of Police, all the time appearing solely occupied with the care of driving back the crowd in the street, sent for orders to the Ministry of the Interior.

During that time some of the Representatives, seated round a table in the great Hall, wrote to their families, to their wives, to their friends.

They snatched up the last leaves of paper; the pens failed; M.de Luynes wrote to his wife a letter in pencil.

There were no wafers; they were forced to send the letters unsealed; some soldiers offered to post them.

M.Chambolle's son, who had accompanied his father thus far, undertook to take the letters addressed to Mesdames de Luynes, de Lasteyrie, and Duvergier de Hauranne.