“He intends to appear, yes, he intends to appear without doubt,” said Master Isnard, “but he is coming with a retinue of armed men; who can tell what he is going to say to those poor overseers of the port?”
“Doubtless he wishes to intimidate them,” said the consul.
“He wishes to make his refusal to recognise their jurisdiction all the more contemptuous by coming to tell them so himself,” said the recorder.
“An armed retinue?” said a hearer. “And what do these men with carbines intend to do against us?”
“The consul is right. He is coming to insult the overseers,” said one of the most defiant citizens.
“Come now, Raimond V., as bold as he is, would never dare do that,'’ replied a third.
“No, no; he recognises our privileges,—he is a good and worthy lord,” cried several voices. “We were wrong to distrust him.”
In a word, by one of those sudden changes so common in popular excitements, the mind of the people at once turned over to the favour of Raimond V. and to hostility toward the recorder.
Master Isnard put both his responsibility and his person under cover, and, in so doing, did not hesitate to expose his unfortunate clerk to the anger of the people.
Instead of manifesting hostility to the baron, several of the citizens now assumed a threatening attitude toward the recorder for having deceived them.