“Long live the French Guards!” cried the people.
“Long live the soldiers of the country!” cried Billot.
“Thanks,” replied the latter. “We have smelt gunpowder, and we are now baptized.”
“And I, too,” said Pitou, “I have smelt gunpowder.”
“And what do you think of it?” inquired Billot.
“Why, really, I do not find it so disagreeable as I had expected,” replied Pitou.
“But now,” said Billot, who had had time to examine the carbine, and had ascertained that it was a weapon of some value, “but now, to whom belongs this gun?”
“To my master,” said the voice which had already spoken behind him. “But my master thinks that you make too good use of it to take it back again.”
Billot turned round, and perceived a huntsman in the livery of the Duke of Orleans.
“And where is your master?” said he.
The huntsman pointed to a half—open Venetian blind, behind which the prince had been watching all that had passed.
“Your master is then on our side?” asked Billot. “With the people, heart and soul,” replied the huntsman.
“In that case, once more, ‘Long live the Duke of Orleans!'” cried Billot. “My friends, the Duke of Orleans is with us. Long live the Duke of Orleans!”
And he pointed to the blind behind which the prince stood.
Then the blind was thrown completely open, and the Duke of Orleans bowed three times.
After which the blind was again closed.
Although of such short duration, his appearance had wound up the enthusiasm of the people to its acme.
“Long live the Duke of Orleans!” vociferated two or three thousand voices.
“Let us break open the armorers’ shops!” cried a voice in the crowd.
“Let us run to the Invalides!” cried some old soldiers. “Sombreuil has twenty thousand muskets.”
“To the Invalides!”
“To the Hôtel de Ville!” exclaimed several voices. “Flesselles the provost of the merchants, has the key of the depôt in which the arms of the Guards are kept. He will give them to us.”
“To the Hôtel de Ville!” cried a fraction of the crowd.
And the whole crowd dispersed, taking the three directions which had been pointed out.
During this time the dragoons had rallied round the Baron de Besenval and the Prince de Lambesq, on the Place Louis XV.
Of this Billot and Pitou were ignorant. They had not followed either of the three troops of citizens, and they found themselves almost alone in the square before the Palais Royal.
“Well, dear Monsieur Billot, where are we to go next, if you please?” said Pitou.
“Why,” replied Billot, “I should have desired to follow those worthy people,—not to the gunmakers’ shops, since I have such a beautiful carbine, but to the Hôtel de Ville or to the Invalides. However, not having come to Paris to fight, but to find out the address of Doctor Gilbert, it appears to me that I ought to go to the College of Louis—le—Grand, where his son now is; and then, after having seen the doctor, why, we can throw ourselves again into this seething whirlpool.” And the eyes of the farmer flashed lightning.
“To go in the first place to the College of Louisle—Grand appears to me quite logical,” sententiously observed Pitou; “since it was for that purpose that we came to Paris.”
“Go, get a musket, a sabre, a weapon of some kind or other from some one or other of those idle fellows who are lying on the pavement yonder,” said Billot, pointing to one out of five or six dragoons who were stretched upon the ground; “and let us at once go to the college.”
“But these arms,” said Pitou, hesitating, “they are not mine.”
“Who, then, do they belong to?” asked Billot.
“To the king.”
“They belong to the people,” rejoined Billot.
And Pitou, yielding implicitly to the opinion of the farmer, whom he knew to be a man who would not rob a neighbor of a grain of millet, approached with every necessary precaution the dragoon who happened to be the nearest to him, and after having assured himself that he was really dead, took from him his sabre, his musketoon, and his cartouche—box.