"What do you want, captain?" he inquired.
"You, my Lord Charny, as you are the garrison commander. I want the final orders, as the head of the insurrectionary column appears on the Carrousel."
"You are not to let them force their way through, the king having decided to die in the midst of us."
"Rely on us, major-general," briefly replied Captain Durler, going back to his men with this order, which was their death-sentence.
As he said, the van of the rebels was in sight. It was the thousand pikemen, at the head of whom marched some twenty Marseilles men and fifteen French Guardsmen; in the ranks of the latter gleamed the bullion epaulets of a National Guards captain. This young officer was Ange Pitou, who had been recommended by Billet, and was charged with a mission of which we shall hear more.
Behind these, at a quarter-mile distance, came a considerable body of National Guards and Federals, preceded by a twelve-gun battery.
When the garrison commandant's order was transmitted to them, the Swiss fell silently into line and resolutely stood, with cold and gloomy firmness.
Less severely disciplined, the National Guards took up their post more disorderly and noisily, but with equal resolution.
The nobles, badly marshaled, and armed with striking weapons only, as swords or short-range pistols, and aware that the combat would be to the death, saw the moment approach with feverish glee when they could grapple with their ancient adversary, the people, the eternal athlete always thrown, but growing the stronger during eight centuries.