At Maillart's cry, "To me, my friends!" the passageway, until then dark, was suddenly illumined by several lanterns that had been kept under the cloaks of their carriers. By the glimmering light a large number of men were seen, all armed with pikes, halbards and cutlasses. Among them were the Sire of Charny, the knight James of Pontoise and the councilman Pierre Dessessarts. Hardly had Marcel dropped under the axe of Maillart than the troop of assassins issued forth from their ambuscade, and crying: "Montjoie, the King and Duke!" precipitated themselves upon the provost to despatch him. Marcel, his skull cleaved in two and his face covered with blood, sought to regain his feet with the help of Jocelyn and Philip Giffart. These made heroic efforts to defend the wounded man, but they were soon thrown down with him and all three riddled with sword thrusts and axe blows. The other governors and several of their partisans, who were posted in reserve at a nearby house where they were to await the issue of Marcel's rendezvous with the King of Navarre, hearing the increasing tumult and cries of "Montjoie, the King and Duke!" rushed to the gate of St. Antoine intending to come to the aid of the provost. Their red and blue head-covers pointed them out to the fury of the murderers. Their heroic defence was soon overcome and they were all butchered like their chief. But the rage of Maillart and of the Sire of Charny was not yet appeased. "To death with all the enemies of our Sire, the Regent!" cried the seigneur. "We know where they are burrowing. Let us run to their houses. We shall kill them in their beds!" "To death!" responded John Maillart brandishing his axe. "To death with the partisans of Marcel! To death with all the communiers!" "Montjoie, the King and Duke!" repeated in chorus the armed band. "Death to the red and blue!" "Friends!" cried the seigneur of Charny, "the body of the knight of Conflans, a victim of the popular party, was exposed in the Student's Dale. Let now the body of Marcel be exposed in the same place.... Carry him on your shoulders." "To-morrow the body shall be placed on a hurdle and dragged through the mud to the Louvre which our beloved Sire, the Regent, was forced to leave in sight of Marcel's threats. After that let the carcass of the felon be thrown into the river--unworthy sepulchre for a Christian," added John Maillart, and he said to himself, thinking of his wife: "Petronille will no longer reproach me with being under the provost; Petronille will no longer be eaten up with jealousy; Petronille will no longer hear that Marguerite is the wife of the 'King of Paris' ... and I shall have a title of nobility."