As Mercier slipped out of this back entrance which opened into an alley and so into a street beyond, the crowd broke open the door, and rushed into the house.
"Down with the priest!" they shouted. Some burst into this room, some into that, their passion let loose as the waters from a dam. At first they did not stay to plunder and break, they were too intent on finding the priest; but when every room had been entered and found empty, their rage found vent in spoliation. Some of them had known the room on the ground floor with its ascetic simplicity. Had they not often said that the priest lived no better, in no more comfort, than the poorest among them? The room on the first floor was a revelation to them. Was it not a further proof of the villainy of the priest?
"Curse him!" cried a man as he sent his stick through one of the pictures. In a moment they had taken the action as an example, and the room was wrecked. The whole house was wrecked from roof to cellar, windows smashed, doors torn from their hinges, the stairs broken, even part of the walls and floors and ceilings were hacked to pieces. Might there not be some hiding hole, behind the walls or under the floors, where the priest had crept?
"Where is he?" asked one. There had come a pause, for the wreckage was complete.
"The church! St. Etienne!" came the answer.
"Is he to find sanctuary there?"
The question was asked fiercely, and none answered it, but one idea seemed to impel each one of them to reach the street as soon as possible, and immediately they were struggling toward the door.
Meanwhile a man ran quickly through the city, and ever and anon he paused to ask: "Where is the Duke?" Some answered him by questions, some pointed to the way they had seen the Duke take only a little while ago, some shouted out directions after him. He found Herrick after a long search returning from the Place Beauvoisin. Herrick had heard that Countess Elisabeth was confined in the gate tower, and he had at once had the horses put to her carriage and seen that she was safely conveyed home again.
The man in the cassock ran panting to his side, and in a few words told his story.
"They broke in as I left, sir."