Hundreds of National Guards fraternized with the crowd, reassuring them. Occasionally was to be seen the glimmer of a weapon, a scythe, a cutlass, or a half-concealed dagger. Questioners stopped them from time to time.
"Is it true, we are to attack to-night?"
Dossonville shrugged his shoulders.
"If the tocsin sounds you are. That is all I know."
From time to time there were new accessions in the streets; until, as the two approached the Rue St. Antoine, they were forced to beg their way at every step.
Dossonville, his head flung back, reviewed the throng from his great height.
"What a people! Is there anything they will not dare?" he exclaimed. "Brave people! Sublime people!"
They passed through a side street, deserted except for some straggler hastening toward the human torrent. Dossonville, in a burst of confidence, laid his hand on his companion's shoulder.
"That was good to see. I, Citoyen Barabant—I take nothing seriously. Men, individuals, are but blind little animals wriggling for a day or so. I have seen too much of selfishness, of wickedness, of deceits and hypocrisy, to be moved by human motives. Nothing really matters, nothing is serious. But when I see such a sight as that, a whole people rising with one accord, ah, then that thrills me; yes, I am moved!"