The procession still moved on. All the shops were closed; but all the windows were open, and from every window issued cries of encouragement which fell like blessings on the heads of those who formed this great ovation.
In this way they reached the Place Vendôme. But on arriving there the procession was obstructed by an unforeseen obstacle.
Like to those trunks of trees rooted up by a river that has overflown its banks, and which, on encountering the piers of a bridge, recoil upon the wreck of matter which is following them, the popular army found a detachment of the Royal Germans on the Place Vendôme.
These foreign soldiers were dragoons, who, seeing an inundation streaming from the Rue St. Honoré, and which began to overflow the Place Vendôme, loosened their horses’ reins, who, impatient at having been stationed there during five hours, at once galloped furiously forward, charging upon the people.
The bearers of the bier received the first shock, and were thrown down beneath their burden. A Savoyard, who was walking before Billot, was the first to spring to his feet again; he raised the effigy of the Duke of Orleans, and placing it on the top of a stick, held it above his head, crying,- “Long live the Duke of Orleans!” whom he had never seen; and “Long live Necker!” whom he did not know.
Billot was about to do as much for the bust of Necker, but found himself forestalled. A young man, about twenty-four or twenty-five years old, and sufficiently well-dressed to deserve the title of a beau, had followed it with his eyes, which he could do more easily than Billot, who was carrying it; and as soon as the bust had fallen to the ground, he had rushed towards it and seized upon it.
The good farmer therefore vainly endeavored to find it on the ground; the bust of Necker was already on the point of a sort of pike, and, side by side with that of the Duke of Orleans, rallied around them a good portion of the procession.
Suddenly a great light illuminates the square; at the same moment a peal of musketry is heard; balls whiz through the air; something heavy strikes Billot on the forehead; he falls. At first, Billot imagined himself killed.
But as his senses had not abandoned him, as, excepting a violent pain in the head, he felt no other injury,
Billot comprehended that he was, even at the worst, but wounded. He pressed his hand to his forehead, to ascertain the extent of damage he had received, and perceived at one and the same time that he had only a contusion on the head, and that his hands were streaming with blood.
The elegantly dressed young man who had supplanted Billot had received a ball full in his breast. It was he who was shot. The blood on Billot’s hands was his. The blow which Billot had experienced was from the bust of Necker, which, losing its supporter, had fallen upon his head.
Billot utters a cry, partly of anger, partly of terror. He draws back from the young man, who was convulsed in the agonies of death. Those who surrounded him also draw back; and the shout he had uttered, repeated by the crowd, is prolonged like a funeral echo by the groups assembled in the Rue St. Honoré.
This shout was a second rebellion. A second detonation was then heard, and immediately deep vacancies hollowed in the mass attested the passage of the murderous projectiles.
To pick up the bust, the whole face of which was stained with blood; to raise it above his head, and protest against this outrage with his sonorous voice, at the risk of being shot down, as had been the handsome young man whose body was then lying at his feet, was what Billot’s indignation prompted him to effect, and which he did in the first moment of his enthusiasm.
But at the same instant a large and powerful hand was placed upon the farmer’s shoulder, and with so much vigor that he was compelled to bend down beneath its weight. The farmer wishes to relieve himself from this pressure; another hand, no less heavy than the first, falls on his other shoulder. He turned round, reddening with anger, to ascertain what sort of antagonist he had to contend with.