The hearers might fancy the earth quaked beneath their feet.
"What do you want?" several voices gasped with the accent of a panic.
"An honorable capitulation."
As the assailants could not fully comprehend the extent of Launay's despair and did not believe his speech, they began to enter, Billet at the head. But he suddenly turned pale and trembled, for he had thought of Dr. Gilbert. It little mattered to the farmer whether the Bastile was torn down or blown up; but at any price the arch-revolutionist must live, the pupil of Balsamo, his successor, perhaps, at the head of the Invisibles.
"Stop," shouted Billet, "for the sake of the prisoners!"
Elie and Hullin, and their men, who had not shrank from death on their own behalf, recoiled, white and trembling like he had.
"What do you want?" they demanded of the governor, renewing the question his garrison had put to him.
"Everybody must retire," replied Count Launay. "I will listen to no proposition while there is an intruder inside the Bastile walls."
"But you will take advantage of our withdrawal to repair damages," remonstrated Billet.
"If the capitulation be refused, you will find things in the same condition; you there, I at this door, on the faith of a nobleman!"