'To be sure,' answered Nicholas; 'mine is the land of patriots; have we not Werner Stauffacher, Erni of Melchthal, Walter Fürst, and the great and glorious Tell?'
'I have heard,' said Alphonse, 'that Tell is a myth—a fable.'
'A myth—a fable!' exclaimed Nicholas, dropping Gabrielle's arm in the extremity of his dismay. 'Wilhelm Tell!' he raised his cap at the name. 'I have seen the place where he shot the arrow; I have seen the spot where his son stood with the apple on his head; I have worshipped before the chapel where he leaped ashore from Gessler's boat.'
'Never mind him now,' said Alphonse, laughing; 'come along with me to the Place Louis XV[1].'
'And tell me what has been going on. Hush! there is the rattle of guns again.'
'Nicholas!' whispered Gabrielle. 'There! look there!'
She pointed to a shutter which was being carried on men's shoulders through the gardens; over it was cast a sheet spotted with blood; the sheet by its folds indicated the outline of a corpse beneath it.
Immediately after, the Royal German dragoons, who had been employed in dispersing the mob, arrived in the Place Louis XV. As they passed the barrack of the French guard, a volley of musketry was discharged upon them from the windows, and several of the soldiers were unhorsed and wounded. At the same moment, a crowd which had filled the Champs Elysées, and some of the promenaders in the Tuileries gardens, rushed upon the dragoons with bottles and stones, which they flung at them with cries of anger and hatred.
'Nicholas, do let us escape,' said Gabrielle.