After Laffray and Grenoble, Lyons, where the silk-weavers of La Guillotière assembled in their thousands to demolish the barricades which had been built up on their bridge against the arrival of the Emperor, and watched his entry into their city waving kerchiefs and hats in his honour, and tricolour flags and cockades fished out of cupboards, where they had lain hidden but not forgotten for one whole year. After Lyons, Villefranche, where sixty thousand peasants and workmen awaited his arrival at the foot of the tree of Liberty, on the top of which a brass eagle, the relic of some old standard, glistened like gold as it caught the rays of the setting sun. And Nevers, where the townsfolk urged the regiments as they march through the city to tear the white cockades from their hats! And Chalon-sur-Saône, where the workpeople commandeer a convoy of artillery destined for the army of M. le Comte d'Artois! The préfets of the various départements, the bureaucracy of provinces and cities, are not only amazed but struck with terror: "This is a new Revolution!" they cry in dismay. Yes! it is a new Revolution! the revolt of the peasantry of the poor, the humble, the oppressed! The hatred which they felt against that old regime which had come back to them with its old arrogance and its former tyrannies had joined issue with the cult of the army for the Emperor who had led it to glory, to fortune and to fame. The people and the army were roused by the same enthusiasm, and marched shoulder to shoulder to join the standard of Napoleon--the little man in the shabby hat and the grey redingote, who for them personified the spirit of the great revolution, the great struggle for liberty and its final victory. The army of the Comte d'Artois--that portion of it which remained loyal--was powerless against the overwhelming tide of popular enthusiasm, powerless against dissatisfaction, mutterings and constant defections in its ranks. The army would have done well in Provence--for Provence was loyal and royalist, man, woman and child: but Napoleon took the route of the Alps, and avoided Provence; by the time he reached Lyons he had an army of his own and M. le Comte d'Artois--fearing more defections and worse defeats--had thought it prudent to retire. It has often been said that if a single shot had been fired against his original little band Napoleon's march on Paris would have been stopped. Who shall tell? There are such "ifs" in the world, which no human mind can challenge. Certain it is that that shot was not fired. At Laffray, Randon gave the order, but he did not raise his musket himself; on the walls of Grenoble St. Genis, in command of the artillery and urged by the Comte de Cambray, did not dare to give the order or to fire a gun himself. "The men declare," he had said gloomily, "that they would blow their officers from their own guns."