"Very well, attend to your instructions. Both sides of the great gates are to be opened."
"Opened, Citizen?" stammered the captain, whilst a murmur of dissatisfaction ran through the room.
Dangeau's brows made a dangerous straight line.
"Opened," he repeated emphatically. "Between the outer and inner doors you will draw up a double line of your steadiest men—unarmed."
It was only the officer's look which protested this time, but it quailed before Dangeau's glance of steel.
"You will place a strong guard beyond, out of sight. These men will be fully armed. All corridors, passages, and courts leading to the Tower will be held in sufficient force, but not a man is to make so much as a threatening gesture without orders. You will be so good as to carry out these instructions without delay. I shall join you at the gate."
The captain swung away, and Dangeau turned to his colleagues.
"I propose to try to bring the people to reason," he said; "if they will hear me, I will speak to them. If not—we can only die. The prisoners are a sacred trust, but to have to use violence in defending them would be fatal in the extreme, and every means must be taken to obviate the necessity. Legros, you are a popular man, and you, Meunier; meet the mob, fraternise with the leaders, promote a feeling of confidence. They must be led to feel that it is our patriotism which denies them, and not any sentiment of sympathy with tyrants."
There was a low murmur of applause as Dangeau concluded. He had acted so rapidly that these slow-thinking bourgeois had scarcely grasped the necessity for action before his plan was laid before them, finished to the last detail.
As he left the room, he had a last order to give: "Tell Cléry and Renault to keep the prisoners away from the windows"; and with that was on his way to the gates.