Hooting from both sides of the wall killed his doleful entreaties.
Billet stepped forward, and interposed between the soldiers and the mob and the schoolboys.
"The old gentleman is right," he said. "The youngsters are a sacred trust. Let men go and fight and get knocked over, that is their duty, but children are the seed for the future."
A disapproving murmur was heard.
"Who grumbles?" demanded the farmer; "I am sure it is not a father. Now, I am a father; I have had two men killed in my arms this last night; it is their blood on my breast—see!"
He showed the stains to the assemblage with a grand gesture electrifying all.
"Yesterday, I was fighting at the Palais Royale and in the Tuileries Garden," resumed the farmer; "and this lad fought by my side; but then he has no father or mother: and besides he is almost a man grown."
Pitou looked proud.
"I shall be fighting again to-day; but I do not want anybody to say the Parisians could not thrash the enemy until they brought the children to help them."
"The man's right," chorussed the soldiers and women. "No children in the fighting. Keep them in."