A bell rang and recalled Marcel from his reverie. "I shall have barely time to reach the convent of the Cordeliers, in order to prepare our friends for to-morrow's measures ... terrible measures!... yet as legitimate as the law of retaliation ... supreme and unavoidable law in such gloomy days as these, when violence can be opposed and overcome with violence only! Oh! Let the blood fall upon the heads of those who, having driven the people to extremities, have by their conduct provoked these impious struggles!" Saying this, Marcel descended the stairs to take his leave from his wife, his niece and Jocelyn the Champion, who, at the invitation of the provost was then taking supper with his family, and, gathered around the table, presented a charming picture of peace and good will. CHAPTER VI. AT THE CORDELIERS. After taking some rest at Rufin's lodging, William Caillet accompanied his host to the convent of the Cordeliers, where a large crowd was gathering, greedy to hear Marcel's address. The Cordeliers, a poor monastic order that aroused the profound enviousness of the high and splendidly endowed clergy, had ranked themselves on the side of the people against the court. The large hall of their convent was the habitual place for the holding of large popular mass meetings. Acquainted with the brother who attended the gate, Rufin received from him permission to speak with Marcel in the refectory which he would have to cross on the way to the hall where he was to address the people. The spacious hall, walled and vaulted with stone, and lighted only by the lamps that burned on a sort of tribune situated at one of its extremities, was packed with a dense and impatient crowd, on the front ranks alone of which fell the light of the lamps; the deeper ranks, and in the measure that they stood further and further away from the lighted platform, remained in a semi-obscurity, that deepened into complete darkness at the other end of the hall. The audience consisted of bourgeois and artisans, a large number of whom wore head covers of red and blue, the colors adopted by the popular party, and brooches with the device "To a happy issue."