The May 1968 events in France intrude on Casaubon’s attempt to verify what happened at the Conservatoire: Paris is in upheaval, while the museum appears almost untouched. The contrast between public disorder and the blank normality of the place where he expects to find evidence leaves him suspended between recollection and doubt.

Paris in Upheaval

Casaubon learns from the desk clerk that the city is in turmoil. Several Métro stations are closed, police are using force to disperse crowds, and the students are numerous and pressing beyond what the authorities can contain. The crisis is not an abstract backdrop: it interrupts his immediate effort to establish whether the preceding night’s events were real.

In the Latin Quarter, groups shout and wave flags. On the Île de la Cité, Casaubon sees a police barricade and hears distant shots. Near Sainte-Chapelle, he catches the smell of tear gas and hears a charge, unable to tell whether those running are students or policemen. People flee around him; some take refuge behind a fence and a police cordon while a street scuffle continues. Casaubon recognizes the shame of finding himself among the aging bourgeoisie, waiting for the revolution to subside rather than joining it.

Return to the Conservatoire

When the route clears, Casaubon circles through back streets around the old Halles and reaches rue Saint-Martin. The Conservatoire is open, and its white forecourt and Sunday visitors present a scene of ordinary routine. A plaque identifies the institution as established by decree of the Convention and housed in the former priory of Saint-Martin-des-Champs, founded in the eleventh century. Outside, the student unrest seems to belong to another world; visitors continue their Sunday outing.

Casaubon enters, taking advantage of free Sunday admission. The guards, visitors, and Pendulum are where he remembers them from the previous afternoon. He searches for signs of what may have happened, but finds none. The possibility that the place has been thoroughly cleaned does not resolve the question; his own account breaks off on the conditional doubt that the event may not have happened at all.

Significance and Uncertainty

The protests sharpen the scene’s central contrast. Paris offers visible signs of conflict—closed stations, barricades, gunshots, tear gas, and fleeing crowds—while the Conservatoire offers no visible confirmation of Casaubon’s private crisis. His remembered experience and the apparently intact museum occupy incompatible versions of reality, and neither can conclusively displace the other.

The episode also places Casaubon’s hesitation within a public moment of revolt. He sees the confrontation, takes shelter, and waits for the unrest to pass; at the same time, he is trying to return to a site that may confirm or disprove what he remembers. The city’s upheaval gives his uncertainty a material setting, but provides no answer. After leaving, he cannot recall how he spent the remainder of the afternoon, and his attempts to reach Milan and Garamond Press lead nowhere useful: the offices are closed, and the event remains unverified.