Captain Allaud asked for co-operation in repairing the arms, making cartouches and cartridges, repairing the parapets, the traverses, and epaulements, and fabricating gabions and fascines; and the women made bags for earth,--as if it had been possible to sustain a siege with the sixty veterans and the three companies of National Guards, forming a total of two hundred and sixty men. The Prefect of Dijon had transmitted the order for these select companies of National Guards to fall back upon Langres, but the order had not arrived. The royalists shrugged their shoulders on seeing these two hundred and sixty National Guards exercising on the platform of the outwork, and went so far as to joke in the places of public resort about Captain Allaud's _garrison_. He could not put up with raillery, and talked aloud to his men about running their swords through the jokers. High words and even blows were exchanged in the _cafés_. The mayor ventured to interpose his authority; he was insulted and called a traitor, and the captain was informed of the intrigues set on foot by the royalists. At night the captain had the gates of the _cité_ shut, and the antagonism between the upper and lower town was increasing in violence. "If the Austrians come," said the captain, "the houses of these royalist traitors will be the first marks for our balls!" Both parties became excited, and the mayor had the impudence to ask the captain on whose authority he was acting. "I am the _commandant de place_," replied the veteran, "since there is no other officer here, and La Roche-Pont is a defensible place.... To prove it to you I arrest you!" And he had the mayor conducted to the citadel. Great was the excitement in the town, but the royalists were in a feeble minority, and dared not stir. They cried "Vive le Gouverneur!" in the taverns. The mob attempted to plunder the mayor's house, which was situated on the _cité_, and the captain had great difficulty in putting down the disturbance. "Rascals!" cried he to the fellows who were already breaking in the doors of the house, "I will have you shot like dogs. Sacrebleu! you can break open doors; we shall see whether you have so much pluck when the Germans come! Here," added he, turning to a dozen veterans, who were following him, "clear the place of this _canaille_!" and, setting the example, he dealt blows in abundance with the flat of his sword on the backs of the plunderers.