"How did this advice reach you?" inquired the major.
"In the letter the deputies carried. They thought they were bearing a desire for the Bastile to be surrendered, and it was the order to defend it that they handed me."
The major bent his head.
"Go to your post and do not quit it till I command you sir," continued Launay. Losme obeying, he coldly folded up the paper, replaced it in his pocket, and went over to the cannoniers to advise them to aim true and fire low. They obeyed like the major.
But the fortalice's fate was settled. No human power could delay the accomplishment.
To every cannonshot the reply was "We mean to have the Bastile!"
While voices claimed it, arms were not idle.
Pitou's and Billet's arms and voices were among those asking most energetically and working most efficaciously.
Each worked according to his character. Courageous and confident as the bulldog, Billet had run at the enemy, heedless of shot and steel. Pitou, prudent and circumspect as the fox, endowed to the highest degree with self-preservation, utilized all his faculties to watch danger and anticipate it. His sight knew the most deadly embrasures, and distinguished the least move of the bronze tube to enter it. He could guess the exact moment when the rampart-gun was about to fire through the portcullis. His eyes having done their office, he made his limbs work for their owner.
Down went his shoulders and in went his chest, so that his frame offered no more surface than a board seen edgewise.