"Down with Charles X and Polignac!"
"Down with all the Jesuits and skull-caps!"
And all present joined in the battle-cry:
"Long live the Republic! To the barricades!"
CHAPTER II.
ORLEANS ON THE THRONE.
Four days later, namely, the 31st of July, Marik Lebrenn lay on his bed, sorely wounded. Bravely defending, with his father, his friends, and a little army of workingmen of St. Denis Street, on the 28th, the barricade raised by them the preceding day a few steps from the Lebrenn domicile, he had his arm broken by a ball. The wound, grave in itself, was further complicated by an attack of lockjaw, induced by the stifling heat of those summer days. Thanks to the care of Doctor Delaberge, one of his father's political friends and one of the heroes of July, Marik had come safely through the lockjaw, in spite of its usual deadliness. But for the three days he had remained a prey to a violent delirium; his reason had now returned to him hardly an hour ago.
Beside his cot was seated his mother; his wife, bent over the bed, held her infant in her arms.
"How sweet it is to return to life between a mother and a darling wife, to embrace one's child, and moreover to feel that one has done his duty as a patriot," murmured Marik feebly, but happily. "But where is father?"
"Father is unwounded. He went out, an hour ago, to be present at a final meeting with Monsieur Godefroy Cavaignac, the valiant democrat," answered his mother.
"And our friends, Martin, Duresnel, and General Oliver?"