"Why follow you?" said the chief of the enrolled Volunteers.
"Certainly. We shall conduct the citizeness to the post of the Hôtel de Ville, where we are on guard, and there she will be examined."
"Not so, not so," said the chief of the first troop; "she belongs to us, and we will keep her."
"Citizens, citizens," said Lorin, "you will make me angry!"
"Angry, or not angry, morbleu, it is equally the same to us. We are true soldiers of the Republic, and while you patrol the streets, we go to shed our blood on the frontier."
"Take care you do not shed it by the way, citizens, which is very likely to occur, if you are not rather more polite than you are at present."
"Politeness is a virtue appertaining to the aristocracy, and we belong to the lower orders," replied the chief.
"Do not speak of these things before Madame," said Lorin, "perhaps she is an Englishwoman. Do not be angry at the supposition, my beautiful bird of the night," added he, gallantly, turning toward the unknown. "Doubtless you are conversant with the poets, and one of them tells us 'that England is a swan's nest situated in the midst of a large pond.'"
"Ah! you betray yourself," said the chief of the enrolled; "you avow yourself a creature of Pitt, in the pay of England. A—"
"Silence," said Lorin; "you do not understand poetry; therefore I must speak to you in prose. We are National Guards, affable and patient fellows enough, but still children of Paris,—that is to say, if we are provoked we strike rather hard."