“By the Royal German Dragoons. Did you not hear the cries, the firing, the galloping of their horses?”
“Yes, yes, we did!” cried two or three hundred voices. “They were butchering the people on the Place Vendôme!”
“And you are part of the people, by Heaven, you are!” cried Billot, addressing the soldiers. “It is therefore cowardly in you to allow your brothers to be butchered.”
“Cowardly!” exclaimed several threatening voices in the ranks.
“Yes, cowardly! I have said it, and I repeat the word. Come, now,” continued Billot, advancing three steps towards the spot from whence these murmurs had proceeded; “well, now, will you not kill me, in order to prove that you are not cowards?”
“Good that is all well, very well,” said one of the soldiers. “You are a brave fellow, my friend. You are a citizen, and can do what you will; but a military man is a soldier, do you see, and he must obey orders.”
“So that,” replied Billot, ” if you received orders to fire upon us,—that is to say, upon unarmed men,—you would fire, you who have succeeded the men of Fontenoy, who gave the advantage to the English by telling them to fire first!”
“As to me, I know that I would not fire, for one,” said a voice from the ranks.
“Nor I!—Nor I!” repeated a hundred voices.
“Then see that others do not fire upon us,” cried Billot. “To allow the Germans to butcher us is just the same thing as if you slaughtered us yourselves.”
“The dragoons! the dragoons!” cried several voices at the same time that the crowd, driven backwards, began to throng the square, flying by the Rue de Richelieu.
And there was heard the distant sound of the galloping of heavy cavalry upon the pavement, but which became louder at every moment.
“To arms! to arms!” cried the fugitives.
“A thousand gods!” cried Billot, throwing the dead body of the Savoyard upon the ground, which he had till then held in his arms; “give us your muskets, at least, if you will not yourselves make use of them.”
“Well, then, yes; by a thousand thunders, we will make use of them!” said the soldier to whom Billot had addressed himself, snatching out of his hand his musket, which the other had already seized. “Come, come! let us bite our cartridges, and if the Austrians have anything to say to these brave fellows, we shall see!”
“Yes, yes, we’ll see!” cried the soldiers, putting their hands into their cartouche—boxes and biting off the ends of their cartridges.
“Oh, thunder!” cried Billot, stamping his feet; “and to think that I have not brought my fowling—piece! But perhaps one of those rascally Austrians will be killed, and then I will take his carbine.”
“In the mean time,” said a voice, “take this carbine; it is ready loaded.”
And at the same time an unknown man slipped a richly mounted carbine into Billot’s hands.
At that instant the dragoons galloped into the square, riding down and sabring all that were in their way.
The officer who commanded the French Guards advanced four steps.
“Hilloa, there, gentlemen dragoons!” cried he; “halt there, if you please!”
Whether the dragoons did not hear, or whether they did not choose to hear, or whether they could not at once arrest the violent course of their horses, they rode across the square, making a half—wheel to the right, and ran over a woman and an old man, who disappeared beneath their horses’ hoofs.
“Fire, then, fire!” cried Billot.
Billot was standing close to the officer. It might have been thought that it was the latter who had given the word.
The French Guards presented their guns, and fired a volley, which at once brought the dragoons to a stand.
“Why, gentlemen of the Guards,” said a German officer, advancing in front of his disordered squadron, “do you know that you are firing upon us?”
“Do we not know it?” cried Billot; and he fired at the officer, who fell from his horse.
Then the French Guards fired a second volley, and the Germans, seeing that they had on this occasion to deal, not with plain citizens, who would fly at the first sabrecut, but with soldiers, who firmly waited their attack, turned to the right—about, and galloped back to the Place Vendôme, amidst so formidable an explosion of bravoes and shouts of triumph, that several of their horses, terrified at the noise, ran off with their riders, and knocked their heads against the closed shutters of the shops.