At night, in the theatre, there were outcries to hold the ball forbidden by the préfet; but matters went no further than that. Next day the town seemed quiet; but a rumour spread abroad that they were going to give a charivari that night to M. le préfet. The Dauphiné charivaris are celebrated; some time previously they had given one at Vizille, which had made much stir. In the morning M. Maurice Duval was warned of the project. So he sent an order to the mayor to put a battalion of the National Guard under arms. Now this despatch,--by what cause or from what reason is still unknown,--sent from the préfecture at noon, never reached the Mairie until a quarter to five in the evening. This was too late: the summons could not take effect. The charivari was no empty threat. About eight at night a gathering began to collect: it had nothing hostile about it, for nearly a third of it was composed of women and children. This crowd, which had no arms, nor even at that moment, at least, any means necessary for the giving of a charivari, was contented with shouts of laughter, uttering of halloes, and occasionally cries of "Down with the préfet!" This was all very disagreeable, but ranked, however, among the insults to which not merely public functionaries are exposed, but Conservative deputies even still more. A summons could put an end to the gathering of the crowd; but M. Duval was not content with merely re-establishing order; he wished to punish those who had annoyed him. He gave orders to MM. Vidal and Jourdan, police commissaries, to go to the barracks where the soldiers had been confined for four hours, each to take a company, and to _surround,_ the agitators. Amongst these agitators, a tipsy youth was bringing notice upon himself by his droll gesticulations and frantic shouts. The police agents made way through the crowd to arrest the _charivariseur_ from the midst of its numbers. The crowd let them do so, and the young man was taken away to the guardhouse. But the arrest was hardly accomplished before all those men who had kept silence, and given way to two policemen, reproached themselves with their cowardice, and excited one another, clamouring at the top of their voices for the prisoner. Then the charivari began to change its aspect: it turned to a riot. It was at this moment, and as the first deputy of the mayor was about to set the prisoner free--who, ignorant of the cause of all the uproar, had been asleep in the guardhouse--that the grenadiers and light infantry appeared: the grenadiers, led by M. Vidal, were advancing across the Place Saint-André; the infantry, led by M. Jourdan, by the rue du Quai. These were the only two ways of egress. The soldiers wore the gloomy expression which indicates determined purpose. They marched in file, advanced in silence, the drummers having their drums on their backs. Suddenly M. Vidal disappeared, and across the Place Saint-André this order was given