"Three francs for the window," said the monarch; "and the muffins of
course spoiled!" and he sat down to breakfast very peevishly. Ah, King
Louis Philippe, that shot cost thee more than a window-pane--more than
a plate of muffins--it cost thee a fair kingdom and fifty millions of
tax-payers.
The shot had been fired from Fort Potato. "Gracious heavens!" said the
commander of the place to the Irish Prince, in a fury, "What has your
Highness done?" "Faix," replied the other, "Donegal and I saw a sparrow
on the Tuileries, and we thought we'd have a shot at it, that's all."
"Hurroo! look out for squalls," here cried the intrepid Hibernian; for
at this moment one of Paixhans' shells fell into the counterscarp of the
demilune on which they were standing, and sent a ravelin and a couple of
embrasures flying about their ears.
Fort Twenty-three, which held out for Louis Philippe, seeing Fort
Twenty-four, or Potato, open a fire on the Tuileries, instantly replied
by its guns, with which it blazed away at the Bourbonite fort. On seeing
this, Fort Twenty-two, occupied by the Imperialists, began pummelling
Twenty-three; Twenty-one began at Twenty-two; and in a quarter of an
hour the whole of this vast line of fortification was in a blaze of
flame, flashing, roaring, cannonading, rocketing, bombing, in the most
tremendous manner.
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