"Mesdames," he cried rudely, "this screeching will profit us nothing.
Even if we must die, let us die becomingly, not shrieking like butchered geese."
A dozen men raised their voices angrily against him in defence of the women he had slighted. But he waved them impatiently away.
"Is this an hour in which to fall a-quarrelling among ourselves?" he exclaimed. "Or do you think it one in which a man can stop to choose his words? Sang-dieu! That screaming is a more serious matter than at first may seem. If these rebellious dogs should chance to hear it, it will be but so much encouragement to them.
A fearless front, a cold contempt, are weapons unrivalled if you would prevail against these mutinous cravens."
But his guests were insistent that something more than fearless fronts and cold contempts should be set up as barriers between themselves and the advancing peasantry. And in the end Bellecour impatiently quitted the room to give orders for the barricading of the gates and the defending of the Chateau, leaving behind him in the salon the very wildest of confusions.
>From the windows the peasantry could now be seen, by the light of their torches, marching up the long avenue that fronted the Chateau, and headed by a single drum on which the bearer did no more than beat the step. They were a fierce, unkempt band, rudely armed - some with scythes, some with sickles, some with hedge-knives, and some with hangers; whilst here and there was one who carried a gun, and perhaps a bayonet as well. Nor were there men only in the rebellious ranks. There were an almost equal number of women in crimson caps, their bosoms bare, their heads dishevelled, their garments filthy and in rags - for the tooth of poverty had bitten deeply into them during the past months.
As they swung along to the rhythmical thud of the drum, their voices were raised in a fearful chorus that must have made one think of the choirs of hell, and the song they sang was the song of Rouget de l'Isle, which all France had been singing these twelve months past:
"Aux armes, citovens!
Formez vos bataillons.
Allons, marchons!
Qu'un sang inpur Abreuve nos sillons!"
Ever swelling as they drew nearer came the sound of that terrible hymn to the ears of the elegant, bejewelled, bepowdered company in the Chateau. The gates were reached and found barred. An angry roar went up to Heaven, followed by a hail of blows upon the stout, ironbound oak, and an imperious call to open.
In the courtyard below the Marquis had posted the handful of servants that remained faithful - for reasons that Heaven alone may discern - to the fortunes of the house. He had armed them with carbines and supplied them with ammunition. He had left them orders to hold off the mob from the outer gates as long as possible; but should these be carried, they were to fall back into the Chateau itself, and make fast the doors. Meanwhile, he was haranguing the gentlemen - some thirty of them, as we have seen - in the salon and urging them to arm themselves so that they might render assistance.
His instances were met with a certain coldness, which at last was given expression by the most elegant Vicomte d'Ombreval - the man who was about to become his son-in-law.
"My dear Marquis," protested the young man, his habitually supercilious mouth looking even more supercilious than usual as he now spoke, "I beg that you will consider what you are proposing. We are your guests, we others, and you ask us to defend your gates against your own people for you! Surely, surely, sir, your first duty should have been to have ensured our safety against such mutinies on the part of the rabble of Bellecour."
The Seigneur angrily stamped his foot. In his choler he was within an ace of striking Ombreval, and might have done so had not the broad-minded and ever-reasonable old Des Cadoux interposed at that moment to make clear to the Marquis's guests a situation than which nothing could have been clearer. He put it to them that the times were changed, and that France was no longer what France had been; that allowances must be made for M. de Bellecour, who was in no better case than any other gentleman in that unhappy country! and finally, that either they must look to arming and defending themselves or they must say their prayers and submit to being butchered with the ladies.
"For ourselves," he concluded calmly, tapping his gold snuffbox and holding it out to Bellecour, for all the world with the air of one who was discussing the latest fashion in wigs, "I can understand your repugnance at coming to blows with this obscene canaille. It is doing them an honour of which they are not worthy. But we have these ladies to think of, Messieurs, and - " he paused to apply the rappee to his nostrils - "and we must exert ourselves to save them, however disagreeable the course we may be compelled to pursue.
Messieurs, I am the oldest here; permit that I show you the way."
His words were not without effect; they kindled chivalry in hearts that, after all, were nothing if not prone to chivalry - according to their own lights - and presently something very near enthusiasm prevailed. But the supercilious and very noble Ombreval still grumbled.
"To ask me to fight this scum!" he ejaculated in horror "Pardi! It is too much. Ask me to beat them off with a whip like a pack of curs, and I'll do it readily. But fight them - !"
"Nothing could delight us more, Vicomte, than to see you beat them off with a whip," Des Cadoux assured him. "Arm yourself with a whip, by all means, my friend, and let us witness the prodigies you can perform with it."
"See what valour inflames the Vicomte, Suzanne," sneered a handsome woman into Mademoiselle's ear. With what alacrity he flies to arms that he may defend you, even with his life."
"M. d'Ombreval is behaving according to his lights," answered Suzanne coldly.
"Ma foi, then his lights are unspeakably dim," was the contemptuous answer.