"It is to him I am to deliver our ransom, together with a letter that the Duke of Norfolk gave me for him."
At this moment the marshal of Normandy, who had inclined his head toward the window, interrupted Conrad, saying: "What noise is that?... I hear near and approaching clamors."
"Clamors!" cried the seigneur of Norville, "who would be so impudent as to clamor in the vicinity of the King's palace? Give the order, Sire, to punish the varlets."
"It is not clamors merely, but threatening cries," put in the marshal of Champagne running to the door which he opened, and through which a wild outburst of furious imprecations penetrated into the royal chamber. Almost at the same time an officer of the palace ran in from the gallery. He was pale and frightened, and came screaming: "Flee, Sire! The people of Paris are invading the Louvre! They have disarmed your guards!"
"Stand by, my friends!" cried the Regent, livid with terror and taking refuge in his bed, behind the curtains of which he sought to hide himself. "Defend me!... The felons mean to kill me!"
At the first signal of danger, the marshals of Normandy and Champagne, the same as a few other courtiers, resolutely drew their swords. Conrad of Nointel and his friend the knight of Chaumontel, however, guided by a valor that was tempered by extreme prudence, searched with their eyes for some issue of escape, while the seigneur of Norville, jumping upon the bed, tried to hide himself behind the same curtain with the Regent. Suddenly another door, one facing that of the gallery, flew open, and a large number of palace officers, prelates and seigneurs, ran in helter-skelter, screaming: "The Louvre is invaded by the people! Marcel is heading a band of murderers.... Save the Regent!"
These cries had hardly been uttered when the courtiers saw Marcel, followed by a compact troop armed with pikes, axes and cutlasses, appear at the other end of the gallery that communicated with the royal apartment. These men, bourgeois and artisans of Paris, uttered not a sound. Only their foot-falls were heard on the stone slabs. The silence of the armed crowd seemed more ominous than its previous clamors. At their head marched the provost, calm, grave and resolute. A few steps behind him came William Caillet armed with a pike, Rufin the Tankard-smasher with a battle mace, and Jocelyn the Champion with drawn sword. During the few seconds that it took Marcel to cross the gallery, the distracted courtiers held a sort of council in broken words. None of the confused and hasty views prevailed. The Regent remained hidden behind the curtains of his bed together with the seigneur of Norville. Trembling and pale but kept from fleeing by a sense of self-respect, the majority of the courtiers crowded back into the furthest corner of the apartment, while the less scrupulous Conrad of Nointel and his friend, having slid themselves near the second door that led to another apartment, prudently took themselves off.
When he presented himself at the threshold of the royal chamber, Marcel met there none to defend it besides the two marshals who stood with drawn swords. Be it, however, that at that supreme moment they felt imposed by the aspect of the provost, or that they realized the uselessness of a struggle that meant inevitable death to themselves, both lowered their swords.
"Where is the Regent?" inquired Marcel in a loud and firm voice. "I wish to speak with him. He has nothing to fear from the people."
The accent of the provost was so sincere and the loyalty of his word was so generally acknowledged, even by his enemies, that yielding both to a sentiment of royal dignity and to the confidence inspired by Marcel's words, the Regent came out from behind the curtains, not a little encouraged at the same time by the presence of the court people and the quiet demeanor of the armed crowd that had invaded the Louvre.