"And this for you, caitiff," responded the marshal, quick as lightning transfixing the student's left arm with a thrust of his sword. "The cord that is to hang me is not yet twisted."
"No, but the iron that will smash you to death is forged, my noble gentleman," answered the student dealing with his mace a furious blow upon the marshal's head. "I have been Rufin the Tankard-smasher; now I am Rufin the Head-smasher!"
The student spoke true. The marshal's skull was crushed; he fell and expired at the Regent's feet bestaining with his blood the latter's robe. During the tumult that ensued, the marshal of Champagne rushed at Marcel dagger in hand. But William Caillet, who had all the while been seeking with burning eyes for the Sire of Nointel from among the brilliant bevy of courtiers, threw himself in front of the provost ahead of Jocelyn, who had darted forward with the same intention, and the old peasant thrust his pike into the bowels of the marshal. The corpse of the courtier rolled upon the floor. Popular vengeance was taken.
The other seigneurs and prelates, who had run to the royal chamber, fled back distracted by the door that had admitted them. When the Regent, who, fainting with terror, had crouched back upon the bed with his face hidden in his hands, looked up again, he found himself alone with Marcel and not far from the prostrate corpses of his two councilors. Marcel's armed men had slowly departed through the gallery together with Caillet, while Jocelyn was engaged near a window in bandaging with his handkerchief the wound of the student.
Finally, protruding under the drapery of the bed behind which he had held himself all the while motionless as a mouse, the feet were seen of the seigneur of Norville, who had lacked even the strength to flee.
"Mercy, Master Marcel!" cried the Regent, trembling with fear and throwing himself at Marcel's feet with arms outstretched in supplication and his face in tears. "Do not kill me; have pity upon me, my good father! Mercy!"
"We have no thought of killing you," Marcel answered, painfully touched by the suspicion; and stooping down to raise the Regent added: "May my name be accursed if such a crime ever entered my mind! Fear not, Sire! Rise! The people of Paris are good."
"Oh, my good father! I beg your pardon on my knees for having ignored your wise counsels and listened to bad advisers." Breaking out into sobs, the young prince added, wringing his hands in despair: "Oh, good God! Alone and so young to be far away from my father, who is held a prisoner, is it any fault of mine if I placed confidence in the men around me?" The Regent's eyes fell upon the corpses of the two marshals. In heart-rending accents he proceeded: "There they are, the men who misled me! They loved me! They knew me since my cradle! But, like myself, they were blind in their error. Oh, good father! Reproach me not for weeping over the fate of these unfortunate men. It is my last adieu to them," and still on his knees, the Regent crouched lower, his face in his hands and continued sobbing—with rage, not repentance.
Although long made acquainted by experience with the Regent's profound duplicity—a degree of duplicity almost incredible at so tender an age—Marcel was deceived by what seemed the sincerity of the young man's distressful accent. His touching prayer, his tears, the sorrow which he did not fear to express at the death of his two councilors—all combined to induce the belief that, frightened by the terrible reprisals that had taken place under his own eyes, the Regent was sincerely contrite at his errors, and that, convinced at last regarding his own interests, which commanded him to break with the evil past, he now really desired to march on the straight path. Marcel congratulated himself on the happy change, and said to Jocelyn in a low voice: "Order our people away from the gallery. Let them leave the palace and assemble under the large window of the Louvre. You and Rufin may stay with me. I shall take the Regent out of this chamber. The sight of the corpses is too painful to him."
Jocelyn and the student executed the orders of Marcel. Crouching on the floor the Regent did not cease moaning and sobbing. The seigneur of Norville left his hiding place without being noticed by the prince, and approaching him on tip-toe whispered in his ear: "Sire, the most faithful of all your servitors is happy of having braved a thousand dangers and deaths sooner than to leave you alone with these bandits and rebels. Allow me, my noble and dear master, to help you to rise."