Just at that second the sound of the beating of drums penetrated right into the Chamber of Peers. They were beating the rappel in a wild sort of frenzy.
I rushed from the hall; the sitting was almost suspended, half on account of the accident that had happened to M. Crémieux, half because of the terrible noise that made the accused men shiver on their benches and the judges in their seats. My uniform as artilleryman made way for me through the crowds, and I gained the courtyard; it was packed. A coach belonging to the king's printers had come into the principal court and the multitude had angrily rushed in after it. It was the sound of their angry growls combined with the drumming which had reached the hall. A moment of inexpressible panic and confusion succeeded among the peers, and it was quite useless for Colonel Lavocat to shout from the door—
"Have no fear! I will be answerable for everything. The National Guard is and will remain in possession of all the exits."
M. Pasquier could not hear him, and his little thin shrill voice could be heard saying—
"Messieurs les pairs, the sitting is dissolved. M. le Commandant de la Garde Nationale warns me that it will be unwise to hold a night sitting."
It was exactly the opposite of what Colonel Lavocat had said, but, as most of the peers were just as frightened as their illustrious president, they rose and left the hall hurriedly, and the sitting was deferred until the morrow.
As I went out I pushed against a man who seemed to be one of the most furious of the rioters; he was shouting in a foreign accent and his mouth was hideous and his eyes were wild.
"Death to the ministers!" he was yelling.
"Oh! by Jove!" I said to the chief editor of The Moniteur, a little white-haired man called Sauvo, who, like myself, was also watching him. "I bet twenty-five louis that that man is a spy!"
I don't know whether I was right at the time; but I do know that I found the very same man again five years later in the dock of the Court of Peers. He was the Corsican Fieschi.