longer piled upon one man--though you are determined to seek for and obtain all this, nevertheless, I know, you are not men to trench in the least upon the royal authority, farther than your own security requires, or to injure the royal troops whom you have conquered, when they are no longer in a situation to do you wrong. You will remember, I am sure, that they are our fellow-christians and our fellow-men, and you will treat them accordingly. I have therefore," he said, "requested my friends and fellow-labourers in your cause, Monsieur de Brissac and Monsieur de St. Paul, to conduct hither in safety the French and Swiss troops from the different quarters in which they have been dispersed. Their arms will be brought hither by our own friends, and in the manner which we shall deal with these two bodies of soldiery, I trust that we shall meet still with the approbation of our brethren." While thus speaking, the Duke of Guise had been interrupted more than once by the applauses of the people, and in the end loud and reiterated acclamations left no doubt that all he chose to do would receive full support from those who heard him. While he was yet speaking--according to the orders which he had given as he came along--the arms of the Swiss and French guards were brought in large quantities, by different bodies of the citizens: some carrying them in hand-barrows, some bearing them upon their shoulders; and it was a curious sight to see men and boys, and even women, loaded with morions, and pikes, and swords, and arquebuses, bringing them forward through the crowd, and piling them up before the princely man who stood at the top of the steps, surrounded by many of the noblest and most distinguished gentlemen in France. This sight occupied the people for some minutes, and then a cry ran through the square of "The Swiss! the Swiss!" The announcement caused some agitation amongst the populace, and some forgetting that the soldiery were disarmed, unslung their carbines, or half drew their swords, as if to resist a new attack. The discomfited soldiers, however, came on in a long line, two abreast, now totally disarmed, and seeming by their countenances yet uncertain of the fate that awaited them. With some difficulty a space was made for them in the Place de Grève, and being drawn up in two lines, the Duke commanded them to take their arms, but not their ammunition. Two by two they advanced to the pile; and each man, as far as possible, selected his own, when it appeared, to use the words of the Duke of Guise himself, when recounting the events of that day to Bassompiere, that there never had been such complete obedience amongst so agitated a multitude; for not one sword, morion, pike, or arquebuse, of all the Swiss and French there present, was found to be wanting.[2] --------------------- [Footnote 2: This extraordinary fact reminds us of days not long passed.] ---------------------