Nevertheless, the man who desired to avenge his brother rushed forward, sword in hand, emitting a savage cry. Already his feet were on the threshold when, seizing him by the waist, George held him back, saying:
"Would you, indeed, commit murder! Oh, no, brother! You are no murderer!"
And with tears in his eyes, George Duchene embraced the man.
George's voice, his countenance, his accent and his deportment made so deep an impression upon the angry man who cried for vengeance, that he lowered his head, flung away his sword, and, dropping upon a heap of cobblestones, covered his face in his hands, murmuring between the sobs that choked him:
"My brother! My poor brother!"
The struggle was over. The merchant's son went out for tidings, and returned with the information that the King, together with the royal family, had fled; that everywhere the troops fraternized with the people; that the Chamber of Deputies was dissolved; and that a provisional government was set up at the City Hall.
The wounded, whether they belonged to the insurrectionists or to the army, were transported to the improvised hospitals that were set up in several shops, as had been done in the linendraper's. As much attention was bestowed upon the soldiers as upon those who shortly before were engaged in a deadly struggle with them. The women gathered around the wounded. If there was aught to be regretted it was the excessiveness of the zeal of the tenders of good offices.
Several soldiers of the Municipal Guard, besides an officer of dragoons who accompanied Colonel Plouernel, having been taken prisoner, they were distributed among the neighboring houses, whence they soon thereafter emerged in civilian dress, and arm in arm with their adversaries of the same morning.
Lebrenn's shop was crowded with wounded men. One of these lay upon the counter; the others on mattresses hastily spread upon the floor. The merchant and his family assisted several surgeons of the quarter. Gildas was engaged in distributing wine mixed with water to the patients, whose throats were parched with thirst. Among the latter, and lying beside each other upon the same mattress, were father Bribri and a sergeant of the Municipal Guards, an old soldier with moustaches as grey as those of the ragpicker himself.
The latter, after having pronounced Flameche's funeral oration, had been shot in the leg during the encounter with the dragoons. The sergeant, on his part, had received a wound in the loins in the course of the first attack that the barricade had to sustain.