Percenez and Gabrielle recognised the voice and face of Berthier. Before Gustave could fasten the gate, the girl dragged her companion back into the street; in another moment they were caught in the advancing wave, and swept onwards towards the Faubourg S. Antoine. What followed passed as a dream. Gabrielle saw rough faces on all sides of her, wild eyes, bushy beards and moustaches. She heard the roar of hoarse voices chanting; she felt the thrust and crush around her, and her feet moved rapidly, otherwise she would have fallen and been trodden down. She clung to Percenez, and the little man held her hand tightly in his own. It was strange to Gabrielle afterwards to remember distinctly a host of objects, trivial in themselves, which impressed themselves on her memory in that march. There was a man before her with a blue handkerchief tied over his hat and under his chin. The corner of this kerchief hung down a little on the right, and Gabrielle would have had it exactly in the middle. The green coat of a fellow bearing a pole and an extemporized flag attached to it, had been split up the back and mended with brown thread. In one place only was the thread black. Gabrielle remembered the exact spot in the coat where the brown thread ended and the black thread began. The great man who marched on her left had a bottle of leeches in his hand, and he was filled with anxiety to preserve the glass from being broken. How came he among the crowd? Gabrielle wondered, and formed various conjectures. He was very careful of his leeches, but also very determined to remain in the midst of the throng. Above the heads and hats and caps rocked the image of the paper manufacturer, and Gabrielle saw the arms flap and swing, as it was jerked from side to side by the bearers. A dead cat whizzed through the air, and struck the effigy on the head, knocking the three-cornered hat sideways. The mob shouted and stood still. Then one of the men who preceded them with a banner laid his pole across the street, and shouted for the cat. It was tossed over the heads of the people, and he picked it up and attached it to the neck of the image of Réveillon. Then he reared his banner again, and the crowd flowed along as before. Gabrielle took advantage of the halt to peep into a basket she carried on her arm. As she raised the lid, a paw was protruded, and a plaintive miaw announced to her that the yellow cat she had brought with her was tired of its imprisonment, and alarmed at the noise.