Scared, white-faced lackeys had brought the news, dashing wildly in upon that courtly assembly. The peasants had risen and were marching on Bellecour.
Some of his sudden rage the Marquis vented by striking the servants' spokesman in the face.
“Dare you bring me such a message?” he cried furiously.
“But, my lord, what are we to do?” gasped the frightened lackey.
“Do, fool?” returned Bellecour. “Why, close the gates and bid them return home as they value their lives. For if they give me trouble I'll hang a round dozen of them.”
Still was there that same big talk of hanging men. Still did it seem that the Marquis of Bellecour accounted himself the same lord of life and death that he and his forbears had been for generations. But there were others who thought differently. The music had ceased abruptly, and a little knot of gentlemen now gathered about the host, and urged him to take some measures of precaution. In particular they desired to ensure the safety of the ladies who were being thrown into a great state of alarm, so that of some of these were the screams that were heard in that night of terror. Bellecour's temper was fast gaining, and as he lost control of himself the inherent brutality of his character came uppermost.
“Mesdames,” he cried rudely, “this screeching will profit us nothing. Even if we must die, let us die becomingly, not shrieking like butchered geese.”
A dozen men raised their voices angrily against him in defence of the women he had slighted. But he waved them impatiently away.
“Is this an hour in which to fall a-quarrelling among ourselves?” he exclaimed. “Or do you think it one in which a man can stop to choose his words? Sang-dieu! That screaming is a more serious matter than at first may seem. If these rebellious dogs should chance to hear it, it will be but so much encouragement to them. A fearless front, a cold contempt, are weapons unrivalled if you would prevail against these mutinous cravens.”
But his guests were insistent that something more than fearless fronts and cold contempts should be set up as barriers between themselves and the advancing peasantry. And in the end Bellecour impatiently quitted the room to give orders for the barricading of the gates and the defending of the Chateau, leaving behind him in the salon the very wildest of confusions.