Père Félix pushed his way into the dense masses about the entrance of the prison keep. He was sure of himself, but very indignant at those of the Commune who had allowed him to come alone. Of course it was not fitting that Keller Bey should expose his person, but if the twenty of Aramon had marched together in a body, each with his crimson scarf of office girding him, they might have dominated the mob and silenced the hair-brained Barrès. Still, all the more honour to himself, when he should go back to twit them with their fears and tell them the story of his triumph!
"We don't want to hear Père Félix! Down with the traitor! Trample him, spit upon him!"
He could not believe his ears. For then began a din such as he had never heard. The young men on the outskirts had seized the instruments of the band of the National Guard and were now blowing, bellowing, and clanging upon them. He stood beside Barrès, who looked at him contemptuously, tossing the light fall of hair off his brow with a regular movement, as a challenged bull tosses his horns.
"Comrades and citizens, in the name of the Commune of Aramon, elected by you, I address you——"
Brazen horns brayed, tin trays and kettles were beaten, the big drum thundered just underneath. Words issued from the mouth of Père Félix. They must have done so, for his lips were moving, but not even himself heard a word, and the sardonic smile on the face of the Catalan Barrès became a grin.
The old orator, who had swayed all meetings of the plebs in Aramon ever since '48, threw up his hands in hopeless misery.
"They will not hear me," he cried, so that this time the words reached the ear of Barrès. "Why will they not hear me?"
Now Barrès was by this time content with his triumph, and he put his hand to the old man's ear and shouted, "Because your day is past—you are down, you and all your gang. You silenced me at the Riding School meeting three months ago, but then you had Gaston Cremieux to help you. You had better go home. I shall see to it that you do go home, and let not Aramon see your face again. Keep on the farther side of the Durance and no man shall meddle with you. But from this day forth take notice that Aramon means to do without you!"
He beckoned a few determined-looking fellows from the crowd, each armed with a rifle and cartridge-belt. A few instructions, a determined push through the crowd which divided to right and left, shouting hateful words all the time he was passing, and Père Félix found himself thrust ignominiously out of the northern gate of Aramon. His captors had treated him with a certain hasty roughness, but had up till now refrained from insult. Now they tore the red scarf of office from about his body and trampled it in the dust. The rule of the Twenty was over in Aramon.
Slowly and mournfully Père Félix took the way under the beautiful trees of the water road toward the Durance. He did not see where he was going. His foot caught more than once in twisted roots from which the soil had been washed away by the winter floods. Under the willows and among the glimmering poplars shedding blue and gold, he drew nearer the broken pier and the little height of sandy dune from which he could see the blue reek curl upward from the kitchen chimney of the restaurant of the Sambre-et-Meuse.