"In one hour the people will sing the Marseillaise before the Hotel des Affaires Etrangeres!" "The 14th Regiment of the Line is there," replied Flocon. "So much the better! Blood will flow! The revolution will not stop!" And the conspirators separated. At ten o'clock, before the official residence of M. Guizot, himself then absent, and probably in full flight for the coast, an immense crowd of the people with torches was assembled. Their purpose was to sing the Marseillaise. The 14th Regiment barred the way--the street was dimly lighted--a single row of lamps along the courtyard wall was all the illumination--a double line of troops was the defence. "Let me pass!" cried the officer of the National Guard who led the people to the officer who led the troops. "Impossible!" "In the name of the people, I demand to pass!" "In the name of the Law, you shall not!" "The people command! Forward!" cried the National Guard. "Present! Fire!" shouted the officer. There was a roll of musketry--a shrill shriek rang along the Boulevard--the vast mass recoiled--the smoke floated off--sixty-three of the people of Paris lay weltering in their gore! "The blow is struck at last!" cried M. Dantes, rushing across the Boulevard, pale and excited. "To arms, people of Paris, to arms!" "To arms, to arms! Vengeance for our brothers!" was now the terrible cry that burst from the infuriated populace. The congratulation--the illumination--all was lost in the wild wish for vengeance. At eleven o'clock that night an immense multitude, composed chiefly of workmen from the faubourgs, was coming down the Boulevard des Capucines. It was the largest and most regular throng yet seen. In front marched a platoon of men bearing torches and waving tri-color flags. Immediately behind walked an officer in the full uniform of the National Guard, with a drawn sword in his hand, whose slightest command was implicitly observed. Next came a tumbrel bearing the naked corpses of the slain, whose faces, mutilated by their wounds and disfigured by blood, glared horribly up, with open eyes, in the red torchlight that flared in the night blast around! Behind this awful display marched a dense mass of National Guards, succeeded by a countless mass of the people armed with, guns, swords, clubs and bars of iron, chanting forth in full chorus, not the inspiring Marseillaise or the Parisienne, but in awful concert sending upon the night air the deep and dreadful notes of the death-hymn of the Girondins, "Mourir pour la Patrie," intermingled with yells for vengeance. Down the boulevards approach the multitude--more distinct becomes the dirge--more redly glare the torches--and, amid all, more deeply rumble the wheels of the death-cart on the pavement!