In due course a letter
was obtained from the Embassy, signed not, I think, by Lord Lyons himself,
but by one of the secretaries--perhaps Sir Edward Malet, or Mr. Wodehouse,
or even Mr. Sheffield. At all events, on the morning of September 4, my
father, being anxious to settle the matter, commissioned me to take the
Embassy letter to Trochu's quarters at the Louvre. Here I found great
confusion. Nobody was paying the slightest attention to official work. The
_bureaux_ were half deserted. Officers came and went incessantly, or
gathered in little groups in the passages and on the stairs, all of them
looking extremely upset and talking anxiously and excitedly together. I
could find nobody to attend to any business, and was at a loss what to do,
when a door opened and a general officer in undress uniform appeared on
the threshold of a large and finely appointed room.
I immediately recognized Trochu's extremely bald head and determined jaw,
for since his nomination as Governor, Paris had been flooded with
portraits of him. He had opened the door, I believe, to look for an
officer, but on seeing me standing there with a letter in my hand he
inquired what I wanted.
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