"Long live the students!"
"En avant!" roared the man in the red turban.
"Vive l'anarchie!" shouted an individual on the curb whose eyes were glazed from absinthe.
The crowd laughed. Some applauded,—not so much the sentiment as the drunken wit. The people were being entertained.
"We certainly have the street this day," observed Jean to his companion.
"Right you are, my boy!"
Both noted the squadron of cuirassiers drawn up in front of the Opéra, the police agents massed on either side, and the regiment of the line under arms in the Rue 4 Septembre close at hand. In the middle distance a squadron of the Garde de Paris came leisurely up the Avenue de l'Opéra.
"You see, my friend," said Jean, smiling, "the government is looking sharply after its strategic position."
"Vive l'armée!"
The man in the red turban swung his bâton, and his resounding cry was caught up by the manifestants. It was the voice of flattery and conciliation extended to the army, through which the royalist party hoped to win a throne.