“You may trust me indeed, although I hope for your sake that there will be no necessity for such a proceeding,” I answered, my heart beating strangely at the thought of having Sophie and her mother committed to my charge. I resolved, of course, to protect them to the last, and I hoped that in my character as a foreigner I might be able to do this more effectually than La Touche himself. Madame should pass as my mother, and Sophie for my sister, and I hoped that we might thus pass through the fiercest mob, whose rage, being turned against the aristocrats, would not interfere with an Englishman, whom they would imagine was merely travelling through the country for the sake of seeing it, as many had been doing for some time past. We had very little longer time to wait, when some hundreds of persons appeared coming along the road directly for the château. We could see them from the tower, where we had remained. A large number were carrying torches. The entrance gate was locked and barred, and the château itself, all lights being concealed, must have appeared shrouded in darkness.
“Let them exhaust their strength in breaking down the gate,” said La Touche.
Scarcely a moment after, the mob reached the gate, waving their torches, and shrieking and shouting out—
“Down with the aristocrats! Down with the tyrants! Down with those who pillage us, and live upon the product of our toil?”
“Let them shout themselves hoarse,” remarked La Touche. “They will not find it a very easy matter to break down that stout old gate, or to climb over the wall.”
On discovering the impediment in their way, their shouts and threats increased in fury. A number of them, rushing against the bar of the gate, endeavoured to force it from its hinges.
Not a word all this time was uttered by any of our garrison. The insurgents, finding that the gate would not yield, shouted for some one in the château to open it. No one replied. Again and again they shook it. At last we heard the sound of loud blows, as if it were being struck by a sledge hammer, while several figures appeared on the top of the wall, ladders having been procured to assist them up.
“Why do you come here, my friends?” demanded La Touche abruptly. “The gate is locked as a sign that I wished to be in private.”
“It is the residence of an aristocrat, and all such we have resolved to level to the ground,” shouted one of the mob.
“I warn you that you will pay dearly if you make the attempt,” cried La Touche. “We are well-armed, and are resolved to defend the place.”