In the meantime the deputy-governor visited the posts. The two officers rushed to the barracks and M. Toustain began his inspection. One of the first posts he came to was that guarded by Manoury. As he came nearer he saw by the light of his lantern a group of four people. This group struck him as looking suspicious and he accosted them. They were four young men dressed like citizens. The king's lieutenant interrogated them.
"Who are you, gentlemen?" he asked.
"We are citizens of this neighbourhood, commandant."
"What are your names?"
Whether from carelessness or from surprise, or whether they did not want to lie, these four youths gave their names—
"Desbordes, Bruc, Pegulu and Lacombe."
The reader will recollect that they had all four been in the insurrection of 19 August, and their names had been blazoned in the papers, so they were perfectly familiar to the deputy-governor; he called to the head of the guard, Manoury, and ordered him to arrest the four young men, to put them under a guard, and then to give him five men to go out and clear the entrance to the suburbs. Scarcely had the deputy-governor gone a hundred steps, when he perceived what looked to be twenty-five or thirty persons taking flight: some of them were in uniform; amongst them he recognised an officer of the 29th. M. Toustain sprang on him and stretched out his hand to seize him by the collar; but the officer freed himself, and presenting a pistol at close quarters, fired full at M. Toustain's chest, the bullet hitting the cross of St. Louis, which it broke and flattened. The shock was quite enough, however, to knock down the commandant. But he soon got to his feet, and as he saw that his five men were no match against thirty, he returned to the town and stopped at the guard-house to take up Bruc, Lacombe, Desbordes and Pegulu. All four had disappeared: Manoury, one of the officers, had set them free and had disappeared with them. The deputy-governor marched straight to the barracks and put himself at the head of the battalion. This he led to the market-place, sending his company of grenadiers to guard the gate of France and to arrest whoever should attempt to go out. But he was already too late—for all the insurgents were outside the town. After leaving his two chiefs, the non-commissioned officer who had let out everything met Adjutant Tellier, he who had given the order to pack up knapsacks and put flints to the guns. He told him what had happened and the measures that had been taken. Tellier realised that all was lost: he ran to the Hôtel de la Poste, and opening the door, shouted out in the midst of the supper party the terrible words—
"All is discovered!"
Two officers, Peugnet and Bonnillon, still misbelieved and offered to go to the barracks; indeed, they went. Ten minutes later they ran back: the news was but too true, and there was only just time for flight. And they fled.