"Abbot!--no imprudence!" cried the Marchioness. Mademoiselle Plouernel sat steeped in revery at the opposite end of the parlor. Her mind dwelt indignantly upon the odious designs that her own family had dared to plot, and in which so ignoble a role was assigned to her. She remained an utter and indifferent stranger to all that was happening within and without the house. "Well, Abbot," inquired Madam Tremblay, "do you see anything on the square?" "Marchioness!" cried the Abbot, turning pale and stepping back from the window, "we are lost! A mob of men armed with pikes and axes is just turning into the square. They yell: 'Death to the French!' Listen! Listen! Do you hear them? The mob is running this way, howling and vociferating!" Indeed, at that moment, a formidable clamor that drew ever nearer was heard on the square, and distinctly could be made out the furious cries: "Death to Tilly!" "Death to the French!" "Sack the house!" "They are coming to murder Tilly!" stammered the Abbot, livid with terror. "It is done for us! We are lost!" "Abbot, you are losing your senses," replied the Marchioness endeavoring to allay her own alarm. "Matters are not at such an extremity." "Madam, do you not hear those furious cries: 'Vengeance and reprisals!'" asked Mademoiselle Plouernel. "These people are coming to take vengeance upon us for the atrocities committed by the troops of your master, at the instigation of your infamous Catholic clergy!" The danger grew ever more threatening. Hurried steps were heard in the house, where the frightened servants were running about crying out to one another and precipitately and noisily closing and bolting the main door on the ground floor. The door, though thick and strong, and studded with iron nails, could not long resist the assailants. Already it shook under the repeated blows of axes and the butts of muskets, while a volley of stones, thrown from the street, broke with a crash the window-panes in the parlor. The shattered windows allowed the clamor from without to reach the parlor with distinctness. "My sister was violated and disemboweled by the soldiers of Louis XIV," cried the butcher in his stentorian voice; "Vengeance and reprisals! French women are housed in Tilly's residence! Fire upon the door and windows! We will get in! Massacre and fury!" The sound of a discharge of musketry fire followed almost instantly upon the butcher's words. The house seemed to rock to its very foundations. The fusilade continued uninterrupted. At the same time the main door, already half broken down, was attacked with renewed blows of axes, and a lever was applied to its hinges.