The locksmith again stopped and the cheering redoubled. The Superintendent renewed his orders to pick the locks of the doors. "Messieurs," Baude cried in a loud voice, "I appeal against M. le Commissaire to a jury, and from the Ordinances to the Assizes.... Who will give me their names as witnesses of the outrage offered to me?" Five hundred voices simultaneously responded. Pencils and papers were instantly circulated among the crowd with wonderful eagerness and unanimity; each took the pencil in turn and wrote down his name and address on the paper. Then all were handed in to Baude. "You see for yourself, monsieur," he said to the Superintendent of Police, "I have plenty of witnesses." "Upon my word, Monsieur le Commissaire," the locksmith finally said to that officer of the law, "get somebody else to do your job, I back out of it." And, putting his cap on his head, he withdrew. He was accompanied by vivats and more applause. "Force, however, still must rest with the law!" retorted the Superintendent. "I am beginning to believe, indeed, that it will," Baude replied ironically. "Oh, I know my business," the officer replied. "Call another locksmith." An official in black appeared from the crowd as before, and returned with a locksmith carrying a bunch of picklocks at his waist. The applause that had accompanied the retreat of the other man changed quickly to groans as this fresh one appeared. The locksmith was frightened. As he made his way through the crowd he slipped his bunch of picklocks into the hand of one of the spectators, who passed it on to the next man, and so on through the crowd. When he had reached the door, the order previously given to his colleague was renewed. "Monsieur le Commissaire," he said, pointing to his empty girdle, "I cannot do it: my tools have been stolen from me." "You lie!" exclaimed the Commissaire, "and I will have you arrested!" The hand of one of his men was stretched out to seize him, but the crowd opened a way for him and then closed up after him, wrapped him in its folds and engulfed him completely in its stream. He disappeared literally as though he had been devoured! They then summoned the blacksmith whose duty it was to rivet the convict's fetters. But, as the opposition of the crowd began to assume a grave character, and looked dark and threatening, the street was cleared with the help of the police. The crowd withdrew by way of the place Louvois and the arcade Colbert, and by the rue de Ménars, shouting-- "Vive la Charte!" Men climbed upon posts, waved their hats and cried out to Baude-- "You may rely on us--you have our addresses. We will be witnesses for you. _Au revoir! au revoir!_" A reinforcement of police seen coming from the direction of the Palais-Royal completed the clearing of the street. But what did that matter? The moral victory remained with the Opposition, and Baude had played as great a part as any ghostly Revolutionist of 1789.