M. Dantès was received with marked respect by the knot of Republicans as he approached.
"I am delighted to meet you all, and to meet you to-night, or, rather, this morning," said Dantès, warmly, "in order that I may render you an account of my stewardship for the past six hours. They have been hours big with fate; and the first day of Republican France has already commenced. Messieurs, we can no longer remain blind to the fact that the long looked for--hoped for--expected hour has come--the hour to strike--strike home for liberty and for France! To-morrow the streets of Paris will swarm with blouses!--the Marseillaise will be heard!--barricades rise!--the Ministry be impeached! Next day the National Guards will fraternize with the people!--blood will flow!--the Ministry resign! On the third, the King abdicates!--the Tuileries are surrendered!--a Regency is refused!--a Republic is declared! And this day, two weeks hence, liberty will be shouted in the streets of Vienna and Berlin, and every throne in Europe will tremble! The honors of prophecy are easily won," continued the speaker, with a significant smile that lighted up his features, pale with enthusiasm and exhaustion, "when the problem of seventeen years approaches solution with mathematical certainty!"
"Are our plans all complete?" asked Louis Blanc.
"So far as human forethought or power could render them so, our efforts have, I trust, been effectual," was the reply. "Yet the events of every hour will induce changes, and render indispensable policy now undreamed of. Ah! Messieurs, we must none of us sleep now! Not a moment must escape our vigilance! Not an advantage must be sacrificed! We can afford to lose nothing! Without leaders, the people are blind! Not, for an instant, must they be abandoned! To-morrow, let the masses gather at different points! Next day let barricades choke the Boulevards; and, if the conflict come not, be it precipitated--provoked! Thursday, an hundred thousand men must invest the Tuileries, and a Provisional Government be declared in the Chamber of Deputies! The Bourbons will then be in full flight, and France will be free! And now, Messieurs, will you permit me to suggest the propriety of our separation? Yonder Ministerial Secretary has had his eye upon us ever since he entered."
The expediency of the suggestion of M. Dantès was at once perceived; the conspirators parted and one after the other, by different routes, shortly disappeared. As for M. Dantès, he threw himself carelessly in the way of the Ministerial Secretary to whom he had alluded, who was no other than our friend Lucien Debray, and saluted him with most marked and winning courtesy.