text:  The character of my Israelite friend began to fall rapidly in the scale and I had made up my mind that insurrection had gone to its slumbers for that night; when as I was returning by the _Place de Bastile_ and was passing under the shadow of one of the huge old houses that then surrounded that scene of hereditary terror two men who had been loitering beside the parapet of the fosse suddenly started forward and planted themselves in my way