"Oh, my brothers!" cried the monk indignantly, running towards Mary. "The woman whom you are outraging is a saint! She gathers the little children that are left unprotected; she instructs them; she is blessed by all who know her; she is entitled to your respect."
"If she is a saint, I am a bishop—and between a female saint and a bishop the relations are close!" answered the Marquis of Fleurange with a winey guffaw. "She loves children! 'Sdeath, she shall be delighted! I shall swell her family!"
"You shall kill me before you reach her!" cried the monk, vigorously thrusting the marquis back. The latter, being heavily in his cups, reeled, swore and blasphemed, while Brother St. Ernest-Martyr threw himself between the widow, who clung to the cross, and her assailants. Crossing his arms over his chest, he looked defiantly at the seigneurs and said to them challengingly, as he barred their way to their victim:
"Come forward, if you will; but you will have to kill me before you touch this woman!"
"Insolent frockist! You dare threaten us and to raise your hand against me!" yelled the colonel-bishop furious and tottering on his unsteady limbs; and drawing his sword in its scabbard out of his baldric, he took it in both his hands, and struck so hard a blow with its heavy hilt upon the forehead of the monk, that the latter was dazed by the blow, staggered backward, and fell bleeding from an ugly scalp wound at the feet of Mary La Catelle.
Despite the caution that his guest's safety imposed upon him, Christian could no longer remain a passive witness of such acts of brutality; he entertained a respectful esteem for the young widow whose virtuous life he was acquainted with; moreover, he feared lest the monk, who had so generously interposed between the drunken seigneurs and their victim, be subjected to further maltreatment. Christian shut the window, armed himself with a heavy iron bar, slipped quietly out of his house, shut the door after him without making any noise, in order to prevent its being known from whence he came, and, seeing several of his neighbors, whom the disturbance had drawn to their windows, he shouted:
"To your clubs, my friends, to your clubs! Will you allow women to be assailed, and defenseless men to be killed? To your clubs, my friends, to your clubs! Let us save the victims!"
Saying this, Christian ran resolutely upon the three seigneurs and their pages. At that very moment, the Franc-Taupin returned upon the bridge with the pot of Argenteuil wine that he had gone after. Seeing the artisan by the light of the torches and hearing him summon the neighbors to their clubs, the Franc-Taupin deposited the pot of wine at the threshold of the door, drew his sword and rushed to the fray crying:
"By the bowels of St. Quenet, here I am! My fine blade has not taken the air for a long time! It itches in my hands! Death to the enemies of the good people of Paris! Death to the nobles and their pages!"
Several of Christian's neighbors answered his summons and issued from their houses, some armed with clubs, others with pikes. For a moment the three seigneurs stood their ground bravely; they drew close abreast of one another and drew their swords. Their pages, however, as much out of fear of being hurt in the broil as out of mischief, suddenly put out their torches and screamed: