But at length the young courtier bowed his head to the Count, saying, "Well then, sir, I repose the trust in you, knowing you to be a man of such high honour, that you would not undertake what you could not perform, nor fail to execute punctually that which you had undertaken. I will do myself the honour of waiting your return with the Chevalier, at your château." After some further words of civility on both parts, the young officer dismounted and threw his rein to a page, and then formally placing the civil officers under the care and protection of the Count de Morseiul, he gave orders to his dragoons to bend their steps down the hill, and refresh themselves at the auberge below; while he, bowing again to the Count, took his way with the Chevalier and a single attendant along the esplanade which led to the gates of the château without the walls. The civil officers, who had certainly been somewhat maltreated as they came up the hill, seemed not a little unwilling to see the dragoons depart, and a loud shout, mingled of triumph and scorn, with which the people treated the soldiers as they turned to march down the hill, certainly did not at all tend to comfort or re-assure the poor huissiers, greffiers, and other officers. The shout caused the young marquis, who had proceeded twenty or thirty steps upon his way, to stop short, and turn round, imagining that some new collision had taken place between the town's people and the rest; but seeing that all was quiet he walked on again the moment after, and the Count, causing the civil officers to be surrounded by his own attendants, ordered the wicket to be opened, and led the way in, calling to Virlay to accompany him, and urging upon him the necessity of preserving peace and order, let the nature of the proclamation be what it might. "I have given you my promise, Count," replied the blacksmith, "to do my best, and I won't fail; but I won't answer for myself or others on any other occasion." "We are only speaking of the present," replied the Count; "for other occasions other measures, as the case may be: but at present every thing requires us to submit without any opposition.--Where can this cowardly mayor be," he said, "that he does not choose to show himself in a matter like this? But the proclamation must be made without him, if he do not appear." They had by this time advanced into the midst of the great square, and the Count signified to the officer charged with the proclamation, that it had better be made at once: but for some moments what he suggested could not be accomplished from the pressure of the people, the crowd amounting by this time to many hundred persons. The Count, his attendants, and Virlay, however, contrived, with some difficulty, to clear a little space around, the first by entreaties and expostulations, and the blacksmith by sundry thrusts of his strong quarterstaff and menaces, with an arm which few of those there present seemed inclined to encounter.