"Parbleu!" replied M. Maurice Duval, laughing, "that means that with your fine measures of conciliation we, you and I, shall be flung out of the windows!"
The betting was a hundred to one that the prophecy would be fulfilled; so the general, his staff and the préfet left the defence of the préfecture to a detachment of firemen, and hastened into the hall of the Mairie. They found a large number of the National Guard collected there to defend the Hôtel de Ville and the municipal council, if these should be attacked, but they did not seem in the least degree disposed to extend that protection to the préfet and General Saint-Clair. The latter was not mistaken, for he felt there was something unknown and more portentous beneath all this than a provincial riot; it was Bastide and the brothers Vasseur—old campaigners, whose first stripes traced back to Carbonarism—who were leading the movement.
At the cry that went up in the town of "Guibert is dead!" Bastide had conceived an idea which he had communicated to his companions; it was to pick up the body and carry it about the streets, shouting—"To arms!" We know what a similar procession, leaving the Vaudeville Theatre in 1830, had produced, and we have since seen what the same manœuvre did after the famous discharge of the 14th of the line on the boulevard des Capucines. Consequently, Bastide sent men to Guibert's dwelling. The dead body was to be borne to the house occupied by the brothers Vasseur, and the cortège was, from there, to march through all the streets of the town. Whilst they were going to Guibert's house, the younger Vasseur reorganised the volunteer corps with which, in 1830, he had attempted to invade Savoy. A desperate chamois-hunter, he had then carried on a most curious warfare among the mountains, which deserved a historian all to itself. Later, he was exiled from France, and travelled over Mexico and Texas; and, on his return, he was seized with cholera, and died. He was a man of lofty purpose, adored at Grenoble, specially by the men with whom he had made the strange enterprise of stirring up and conquering Savoy.
As he ran to announce that his volunteer corps was ready, the messengers sent to Guibert's home to get the body came to tell in a whisper that Guibert was very ill, but not dead. This was a great disappointment; at the same time, with his usual cleverness, Bastide changed his plan: as people's spirits seemed prepared for bold undertakings, the voluntary corps of the younger Vasseur afforded him actual power; he ordered them to march upon the préfecture. It was the noise of the invasion led by Bastide which had echoed in the apartments, and had obliged General Saint-Clair and M. Maurice Duval to take refuge in the Mairie, in order not to be flung out of the windows, as the préfet said. At the same time, Vasseur the younger, with his volunteer corps, drew up in front of the Mairie windows. So, when General Saint-Clair made the suggestion of giving up to the National Guard all the posts with less than a dozen men at them, a voice rose up and shouted, "It is too late!"
What is it in those four words of eleven letters that is so fatal and cabalistic?
The insurgents now demanded the occupation of all the posts held by the National Guard with the exception of the three town gates, which were to be guarded by the National Guard, artillery and engineers unitedly. The conditions were severe. General Saint-Clair determined to face the insurgents instead of sending a parley; he went into the courtyard himself and wanted to harangue the crowd. But a young man came from out the crowd with his arm in a sling. It was Huguet, who had been wounded the previous day. He exchanged a few vivacious words with the general which were only heard by those around them, but which the latter repeated to others; and it was thus they learned that Huguet, with the vigour of a man who had risked his life the day before, protested against the return of the 35th of the line. Universal applause greeted Huguet's protest; whilst Vasseur, thinking it was time to learn why he and his volunteers were there, embraced him before everybody. The effect of this salutation was electrical. They shouted, "Vive Vasseur! Vive Huguet! Vive le Maire!... Down with the préfet! Down with the 35th of the line!"
A young man called Gauthier stretched out his arm, seized General Saint-Clair by the collar, and cried aloud—
"General, you are my prisoner!"
The general offered no resistance, although the soldiers were within call of his voice, and he knew he had only to say a word to bring about a more terrible struggle than that of the previous day; but he hesitated to give that word, and followed the man who arrested him. They took the general to his hôtel, and Vasseur placed sentinels from his volunteer company at every door. At the same time, Bastide, who was studying the whole situation, thought that the moment had come to assault the préfecture. The doors were forced in at the first attempt, and, in spite of the resistance of the firemen, the insurgents entered the vestibule and tried the doors of the apartments: they were all solidly barricaded on the inside. A street urchin—they are everywhere to be found, and always at the head of any uproar—succeeded in breaking and forcing open the lower panel of a door. Bastide slipped through the aperture and received a blow from a bayonet which tore his coat and scratched his breast; but he seized the bayonet with both hands, and the soldier, drawing his rifle towards himself at the same time drew in Bastide, who found himself inside, snatched the rifle from the soldier's hands, and opened the two sides of the swinging door to those who followed him. The préfecture was captured.
The rumour had gone abroad that the préfet was hidden in a cupboard. Bastide himself presided over the opening of all the cupboards; but they were empty—of préfets, at any rate. The next thing was to take the citadel. At Grenoble, as in ancient Arx, the citadel is situated on a hill, and commands the whole town. Bastide asked for some volunteer to take the citadel with him; an artillery-man named Gervais came forward. They both climbed the steep slope; when they reached within twenty yards of the sentry, the latter cried—