prisoner and shut up in a cellar, while they announced to him, through the grating, that he was to be kept as hostage and that if the slightest injury happened to any inhabitant of the village commune, the penalty of retaliation would be applied to him in full force. They next began to construct barricades at each end of the rue des Grands-Prés, where stood, as we know, both the Latin and French churches. For the material wherewith to build these barricades, which rose up as quick as thought, a wooden shoemaker gave three or four beams, a carter brought two or three waggons, the schoolmaster took his desks and the inhabitants made an offering of their shutters. The street lads collected heaps of stones. I do not know whether my readers are acquainted with the Chartres stones; they are pretty ones that vary from the size of a pigeon's egg to that of an ostrich, and when broken, either by art or nature, they show an edge as sharp as that of a razor. Chartres is partly paved with these stones, and the paviors are usually careful to place the sharp edges upwards so that the pedestrian's boots may come in contact with them; which makes one think with some justification that the worthy guild of shoemakers must give the paviors a consideration. One of my friends, Noël Parfait, a true Chartrian, and jealous, as are all true-hearted patriots, of the honour of his country, maintains that Chartres was once a seaport, and that these stones are clearly the shingle that the ocean swell threw up on the beach in former times. In an hour's time, there was enough ammunition behind each barricade to hold a siege for eight days. Projectiles, also, grew under the hands, or rather, the feet, of the providers. One individual climbed the church tower, to watch the Chartres road in order to sound the alarm as soon as the troop appeared in sight. The Abbé Ledru blessed the fighters, and invoked the God of armies in French; then they waited, ready for anything that might happen. All these preparations had been made in sight of the riflemen and gendarmes who, withdrawn to the Grand-Rue, looked on at all these preparations for fighting without protest. Truly, the wretched fellows were won over to heresy.