"I heard that your son was wounded, Monsieur Lebrenn. I came to inquire after him," he said.
"My son's condition is causing us no uneasiness," Madam Lebrenn answered. "Be pleased to take a seat beside his bed, for you also are wounded."
"I received a saber cut on the head and a bayonet thrust in the leg. But they will be healed in a day or two."
Marik held out his hand to the workman, and said: "Thanks to you, citizen, for thinking of me. Thank you for your mark of sympathy."
"Oh, that's nothing, Monsieur Marik," replied the workman, heartily pressing the proffered hand. "Only I am sorry to have to come alone to see you, because the two comrades who accompanied me here—the other evening—"
"They are also wounded?" asked John Lebrenn hastily.
"They are dead, sir," sighed the workman.
"Still martyrs! How much blood Kings cause to flow! What woes they bring to families!"
"Here, dear son, is how the political farce was wound up," began John Lebrenn again, to complete his interrupted account. "The majority of the 221 opposition deputies, typified in Casimir Perier, Dupin, Sebastiani, Guizot, Thiers, and a few other reprobates, were terrified when they saw the insurrection on the 28th grow to formidable proportions. For, had it been defeated, the 221 would have been taken as its instigators, and, as such, assuredly condemned for high treason either to death or to life imprisonment; on the other hand, if it was successful, they dreaded the establishment of the Republic. To conjure off this double peril, they declared in their special sessions that they still regarded Charles X as the legitimate King, and that if he would revoke the ordinances and discharge his minister, they would at all costs stand for the continuation of the elder branch. Penetrated by this thought, they went to Marshal Marmont on the 28th to beg him to cease firing, declaring that if the ordinances were repealed, Paris would return to its duty. The Prince of Polignac, full of faith in his army, would listen to no proposition on the 27th nor on the 28th. He counted on the intervention of God. The stupid monarch and his minister did not begin to recognize the gravity of their situation till the evening of the 29th, when the troops, thoroughly routed, beat a retreat upon St. Cloud. Then the ordinances were repealed, and Messieurs Mortemart and Gerard were appointed ministers. Charles imagined that these concessions would mollify the insurrectionists, and cause them to throw down their arms."
"And what sort of a role did James Lafitte play through all this?" again inquired Marik.