"Gonchon—fix that on your mind, Pitou."
"Gonchon, or Gonchonius, in Latin," repeated Pitou; "I shall retain it."
"To the Invalides," yelled the voices with increasing ferocity.
"Be on your way," said Marat, "and may the spirit of Liberty march by your side!"
"Now, then, brothers, on to the Invalides," shouted Marat in his turn.
He went off with more than twenty thousand men, while the farmer took away some six hundred in his train, but they were armed. As the two leaders were departing, the provost appeared at a window, calling out:
"Friends, why do I see the green cockade in your hats, when it is the color of Artois, though it may also be that of Hope? Don't look to be sporting the colors of a prince."
"No, no," was the chorus, with Billet's loudest of the voices.
"Then, change it, and as if you must wear a color, take that good old Paris town, our mother, blue and red, my friends."
(Later, General Lafayette, making the criticism that Blue and Red were the Orleans colors also, and perhaps having the stars and stripes of the Republic he had fought for in his mind, suggested the addition of white, saying that "The Red, White and Blue, would be a flag that would go round the world.")