News of all these proceedings reached Marie de Clairvaut in the convent, accompanied with such circumstances of confirmation, that she could not doubt that the intelligence was partly true. But for a short time after the troops were posted, every thing seemed to relapse into tranquillity, except that from time to time reports were brought to the convent parlour, of citizens, and especially women, being treated with great insolence and grossness by the soldiery. Crillon himself was heard to swear that any citizen who came abroad with a sword should be hung to his door-post, while worse was threatened to the wives and daughters of the burghers, if the slightest resistance was made to the troops. The portress brought news that all the houses and shops in the Rue St. Denis and the Rue St. Honoré were closed; and the Prioress herself thought it was high time to cause the convent gates to be shut and barred, and even that door which led into what was called the rector's court, and which usually stood open, to be closed and fastened with large chains. At length tidings were brought that the first open resistance of the people had commenced; that blood had been shed; and it was rumoured that Crillon himself, attempting to take possession of the Place Maubert with two companies of Swiss and one of French guards, had been opposed by the scholars of the University and the citizen guard, and forced to retreat without effecting his object. The terror of the Prioress was now extreme; the sound of horses galloping here and there with the most vehement speed, could be heard even in the parlour of the convent, and towards nine o'clock the roll of distant musketry borne by the wind completed the terror of the poor nuns. It was evident now to Marie de Clairvaut that a struggle had commenced between the Monarch and the people of the capital, on which depended the safety, perhaps the life, of the Duke of Guise, and, in a great degree, her own fate and happiness. In that struggle she could take no part; and, situated as she was, she could gain no relief even from hearing any exact account of how it proceeded from time to time. The fears of the good superior of the convent had driven her by this time to the resource of prayer. All the nuns were ordered to assemble in the chapel; and Marie de Clairvaut, feeling that none at that moment had greater need of heavenly protection than herself, prepared to follow, after listening for a few minutes, alone in her chamber, to the distant roll of musketry which still went on; when suddenly the Prioress returned in great haste with a paper in her hand, and apparently in much agitation and alarm.