The rioters had left the apartment; only the dead and those seriously injured remained, and amongst these I looked in vain for Latour.
Had they spared his life? The idea seemed too good for truth, but it was just possible.
Picking up an abandoned sword, I made my way from the chamber to the staircase. Several bodies lay where they had fallen; otherwise the place was empty.
I ran down to the first landing, and overtook a frightened, pale-faced man--a servant, probably, belonging to the hôtel. The fellow looked at me with such a comical expression of woe, that, in spite of the day's work, I could hardly refrain from laughing.
"There's nothing to be afraid of," I said, slapping him on the shoulder. "I'm not going to eat you. What have the rebels done with Count Latour?"
The man's eyes opened wider than before. He bowed his head and mumbled some words which I could not understand.
"Speak up!" I cried sharply, "or, by the honour of a Botskay, I'll throw you over the balustrade."
The threat reduced him to a state bordering on imbecility. He made no attempt to speak, but, plucking at my cloak like a chidden dog, led me into a small chamber having a window which overlooked the courtyard.
What I saw there held me spellbound; and the man, seeing he was no longer noticed, quietly slipped off.
Outside, Count Latour, the minister of war, the veteran general who had carried the black and yellow flag to victory a score of times, who over and over again had risked his life to uphold the honour of his country, hung, battered and dead, suspended from a lamp-post.