One circumstance nearly unnerved him. He had prevented Pierre from entering with him, under the idea of saving his life from the peril in which his own was placed; but the sudden outcry which presently arose, the oaths evidently directed at an individual, the cries of shrill female voices,—“To the lamp-post with him!”—agonized Charles with the idea that the vengeance of the mob for his opposition was to fall upon his unfortunate servant. He felt a momentary impulse to throw open the door and take all the consequences, the first of which would undoubtedly be that he would be taken to the lamp-post,—— “Not instead of Pierre, but with him,” he thought, however, in another moment. “No. I cannot save him; so I will persevere. And may heaven hold me guiltless of his blood; for I meant well towards him!—But what now?—What a silence!—Have they sent for fire to smoke me out? I will throw up a thicker smoke presently, if that be it.—O, what a horrible cry! What can have put them in a new rage?” If Charles could have looked through the thick walls of his vault, he would have seen that which might well have called down an immediate sentence of death on all his household; that which added new horrors to his wife’s suspense, and increased the agony of poor Pierre, standing as he was in the grasp of two of the enemy, and assured by the fish-women about him that he was to be hanged as soon as they could find a cord. He forgot his own situation for a moment when he looked up to the balcony, and saw the deplorable mistake which was likely to prove the destruction of the whole family. Nobody within doors had thought of M. Raucourt, whom no event was now ever known to bring from his easy chair at the front window. He was left alone while the back of the house was being barricaded with all speed, and messengers put out upon the roof to find their way, if possible, to the authorities; or at least to make signals for assistance. But the children came in a state of amazement to grandpapa, and the shouts reached even his dull ear, and recalled the associations which in the old royalist were always the first to be awakened. He had no other idea than that the people were hailing the royal family, and he resolved not to be behind others in his duty. He sent Pauline for the white cockade he had given her, tottered to his chamber, got out, under a new impulse of strength, upon the balcony, and waved his white favour. It was this which had silenced the mob with astonishment; and in the depth of this silence, the feeble, cracked voice of the old man was heard trying to shout “Vive le Roi!”