"Thank you. And now let us think of to-morrow. There is no time to lose."
Barras drew out his watch and looked at it.
"I should think not," he said; "it is already three o'clock in the morning."
"How many cannon have you at the Tuileries?"
"Six four-pounders, but no gunners."
"They can be found. Bronze is scarcer than flesh. How many rounds can be fired?"
"Oh! eighty thousand at the outside."
"Eighty thousand—just enough to kill eighty men, supposing that one shot out of a thousand does execution. Luckily we still have three hours of darkness left to us. We must have all the guns brought from the camp at Sablons, so that, in the first place, the enemy cannot seize them, and then because we need them ourselves. We must take enough men from the gendarmerie and from the battalion of '89 to man the guns, and we must send for at least a million cartridges from Meudon and Marly. Finally we must find officers upon whom we can depend."
"We have all those who were deposed by Aubry and who have enlisted in the Holy Battalion."