“'You played that part on one occasion,' said she; 'but I scarcely thought you 'd like to refer to it.'
“'How so? When do you mean?' asked he.
“'When they hung you to the lanterns,' said she, with the energy of a tigress in her look. Pardié! at that moment I never saw anything so beautiful or so terrible.”
A loud uproar in the street without, in which the sound of troop-horses passaging to and fro could be distinguished, now interrupted the colloquy. As the noise increased, a low, deep roar, like the sound of distant thunder, could be heard, and the Pole cried out,—“Messieurs les Sans-culottes, I strongly advise you to turn homewards, for, if I be not much mistaken, here comes the artillery.”
“The affair may turn out a serious one, after all,” broke in the Italian.
“A serious one!” echoed the Pole, scornfully. “How can it? Forty battalions of infantry, ten thousand sabres, and eight batteries; are they not enough, think you, to rout this contemptible herd of street rioters?”
“There—listen! It has begun already!” exclaimed Martin, as the sharp report of fire-arms, quite close to the windows, was followed by a crash, and then a wild, mad shout, half rage, half defiance.
“There's nothing for it, in these things, but speedy action,” said the Pole; “grape and cavalry charges to clear the streets, and rifle practice at anything that shows itself at the windows.”
“It is so easy, so very easy, to crush a mob,” said the Russian, “if you only direct your attention to the leader,—think of nothing but him. Once you show that, whatever may be the fate of others, death must be his, the whole assemblage becomes a disorganized, unwieldy mass, to be sabred or shot down at pleasure.”
“Soldiers have no fancy for this kind of warfare,” said De Nevers, haughtily; “victory is never glorious, defeat always humiliation.”