"The brigands, Monseigneur. They are burning and murdering on every side. By the mercy of God they have not yet visited us. And to-night we shall be armed."
"Brigands!" I said. "What brigands?"
But they could not answer that; and I left them in wonder at their simplicity and rode on. I had not yet done with these brigands, however. Half a league short of Cahors I passed through a hamlet where the same idea prevailed. Here they had raised a rough barricade at the end of the street towards the country, and I saw a man on the church tower keeping watch. Meanwhile every one in the place who could walk had gone to Cahors.
"Why?" I asked. "For what?"
"To hear the news."
Then I began to see that my imagination had not led me astray. All the world was heaving, all the world was astir. Every one was hurrying to hear and to learn and to tell; to take arms if he had never used arms before, to advise if all his life he had obeyed orders, to do anything and everything but his daily work. After this, that I should find Cahors humming like a hive of bees about to swarm, and the Valandré bridge so crowded that I could scarcely force my way through its three gates, and the queue of people waiting for rations longer, and the rations shorter than ever before--after this, I say, all these things seemed only natural.
Nor was I much surprised to find that as I rode through the streets, wearing the tricolour, I was hailed here and there with cheers. On the other hand, I noticed that wearers of white cockades were not lacking. They kept the wall in twos and threes, and walked with raised chins, and hands on sword-knots, and were watched askance by the commonalty. A few of them were known to me, more were strangers; and while I blushed under the scornful looks of the former, knowing that I must seem to them a renegade, I wondered who the latter were. Finally I was glad to escape from both by alighting at Doury's, over whose door a huge tricolour flag hung limp in the sunshine.
M. le Curé de Saux? Yes, he was even then sitting with the Committee upstairs. Would M. le Vicomte walk up?
I did so, through a press of noisy people, who thronged the stairs and passages and lobbies, and talked, and gesticulated, and seemed to be settled there for the day. I worked my way through these at last, the door was opened, a fresh gust of noise came out to meet me, and I entered the room. In it, seated round a long table, I found a score of men, of whom some rose to meet me, while more kept their seats; three or four were speaking at once and did not stop on my entrance. I recognised at the farther end Father Benôit and Buton, who came to meet me, and Capitaine Hugues, who rose, but continued to speak. Besides these there were two of the smaller noblesse, who left their chairs, and came to me in an ecstasy, and Doury, who rose and sat down half a dozen times; and one or two Curés and others of that rank, known to me by sight. The uproar was great, the confusion equal to it. Still, somehow, and after a moment of tumult, I found myself received and welcomed and placed in a chair at the end of the table, with M. le Capitaine on one side of me and a notary of Cahors on the other. Then, under cover of the noise, I stole a few words with Father Benôit, who lingered a moment beside me.
"You could not join us yesterday?" he muttered, with a pathetic look that only I understood.