But how speedily one is forgotten in Paris. How soon the
ocean of the world's capital swallows up, not only a human being, but
his family, all his friends and acquaintances, and even his memory! A
chill ran down Rudolf's spine as he pondered over the melancholy
thought of living and dying in Paris as a stranger.
As he drifted aimlessly on with the flowing human stream, he suddenly
found himself in a narrow side-path before a monument surrounded by a
specially dense throng. Several rows of people, principally workmen
and their wives, were standing around it, those behind thrusting their
heads over the shoulders of the front ranks, the new arrivals pressing
impatiently upon those who had taken the place before them and now, as
though spell-bound by an absorbing spectacle, stood motionless, making
no sign of moving on. Yet the whole crowded group was pervaded by a
calmness, a solemn earnestness, not often found among the worshippers
in church. Rudolf, whose curiosity was awakened, forced his way
through the living wall to the front rank, and suddenly stood--before
the monument of Baudin, the republican representative of the people
who, on the 3d of December, 1851, was shot down in the streets of Paris
by drunken soldiers, as, girdled with the tri-coloured sash, which made
him recognizable as a member of the legislature, he protested from the
top of a barricade against Bonaparte's _coup d'etat_.
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