"Justice has spoken; the decree is enforced. The bride is bound and carried to the bed of the seigneur; he dishonors her and then returns her to her husband. The latter makes the amende honorable on his knees before his seigneur; he is thereupon taken to the arena to fight half naked the iron-cased knight.... You may guess the issue of the duel.... The vassal being vanquished, he is put into a bag and thrown into the river.... Such is feudal justice!" "And to-day," now cried out William Caillet stepping forward, a frightful picture of hate and rage, "my daughter carries in her bosom the child of her seigneur! What shall be done to that child, townsmen of Paris, if born alive? You have wives and daughters and sisters! Answer, what would you do? Is that child of shame to be loved? Is it to be hated as the child of Aveline's executioner? Should I at the whelp's birth break in his head lest he grow into a wolf? What to do?" An oppressive silence followed upon the words of William Caillet. None dared answer. Marcel continued: "This, then, is what is going on at the very gates of our town. The country people are pitilessly left to the mercy of the seigneurs! The women are violated, and the men put to death! We have been the accomplices of the executioners of so many victims; we have been so by our criminal indifference, and to-day we pay the penalty of our selfishness. We, the townspeople, believed we would be strong enough to overcome the seigneurs and the crown; we imagined we could compel them to reform the execrable abuses that oppress us. To-day we should admit that we have thought too highly of our own power. The Regent and his partisans violate their own sworn oaths, and shatter our hopes. Vainly have I, in the name of the States General, again and again requested an audience from the Regent to remind him of his sacred promises. The gates of Louvre remained shut in my face. The audacity of our enemies proceeds from the circumstance that our power ends outside of the gates of our towns. Let us join hands with the serfs of the country; let us cease separating our cause from theirs, and matters will take on a different aspect. We never shall obtain lasting and fruitful reforms without a close alliance with the country folks. If to-morrow at a given signal the serfs should rise in arms against their seigneurs, and the towns against the officers, then no human power would be able to overcome such a mass-uprising. The Regent, the seigneurs and their troops would be swept aside and annihilated by the storm. Then would the peoples of Gaul, resuming possession of their country's soil and re-entering upon their freedom, see before them a future of peace, of grandeur and of prosperity without end.... Do you desire to realize that future by joining hands with our brothers the peasants?" "Aye! Aye! We will!" cried the councilmen.