Does not this circumstance prove that their friends are masters of the town, and that they are awaiting them in force? They advance, so certain of success that those who have guns do not even take the trouble to load them. M. d’Escorval and the abbe alone foresee the catastrophe. The leader of the expedition is near them, they entreat him not to neglect the commonest precautions, they implore him to send some two men on in advance to reconnoitre; they, themselves, offer to go, on condition that the peasants will await their return before proceeding farther. But their prayers are unheeded. The peasants pass the outer line of fortifications in safety. The head of the advancing column reaches the drawbridge. The enthusiasm amounts to delirium; who will be the first to enter is the only thought. Alas! at that very moment a pistol is fired. It is a signal, for instantly, and on every side, resounds a terrible fusillade. Three or four peasants fall, mortally wounded. The rest pause, frozen with terror, thinking only of escape. The indecision is terrible; but the leader encourages his men, there are a few of Napoleon’s old soldiers in the ranks. A struggle begins, all the more frightful by reason of the darkness! But it is not the cry of “Forward!” that suddenly rends the air. The voice of a coward sends up the cry of panic: “We are betrayed! Let him save himself who can!” This is the end of all order. A wild fear seizes the throng; and these men flee madly, despairingly, scattered as withered leaves are scattered by the power of the tempest. CHAPTER XXIII Chupin’s stupefying revelations and the thought that Martial, the heir of his name and dukedom, should degrade himself so low as to enter into a conspiracy with vulgar peasants, drove the Duc de Sairmeuse nearly wild. But the Marquis de Courtornieu’s coolness restored the duke’s _sang-froid_. He ran to the barracks, and in less than half an hour five hundred foot-soldiers and three hundred of the Montaignac chasseurs were under arms. With these forces at his disposal it would have been easy enough to suppress this movement without the least bloodshed. It was only necessary to close the gates of the city. It was not with fowling-pieces and clubs that these poor peasants could force an entrance into a fortified town. But such moderation did not suit a man of the duke’s violent temperament, a man who was ever longing for struggle and excitement, a man whose ambition prompted him to display his zeal. He had ordered the gate of the citadel to be left open, and had concealed some of his soldiers behind the parapets of the outer fortifications. He then stationed himself where he could command a view of the approach to the citadel, and deliberately chose his moment for giving the signal to fire. Still, a strange thing happened. Of four hundred shots, fired into a dense crowd of fifteen hundred men, only three had hit the mark.