"You have faith in your swordsmanship?" he answered, with a slight sneer; and then, in a different tone, he went on: "No, Monsieur, it is not that. It is that you are a French gentleman. And as such I leave Mademoiselle to your care without a qualm. God keep you!" "And you," I said. And I saw him go after the others. It was then about five o'clock. The sun was up, and the tower-roof, left silent and in my sole possession, seemed so near the sky, seemed so bright and peaceful and still, with the stillness of the early morning which is akin to innocence, that I looked about me dazed. I stood on a different plane from that of the world below, whence the roar of greeting that hailed Froment's appearance came up harshly. Another shout followed and another, that drove the affrighted pigeons in a circling cloud high above the roofs; and then the wave of sound began to roll away, moving with an indescribable note of menace southward through the city. And I remained alone on my tower, raised high above the strife. Alone, with time to think; and to think some grim thoughts. Where now was the sweet union of which half the nation had been dreaming for weeks? Where the millennium of peace and fraternity to which Father Benôit, and the Syndics of Giron and Vlais, had looked forward? And the abolition of divisions? And the rights of man? And the other ten thousand blessings that philosophers and theorists had undertaken to create--the nature of man notwithstanding--their systems once adopted? Ay, where? From all the smiling country round came, for answer, the clanging of importunate bells. From the streets below rose for answer the sounds of riot and triumph. Along this or that road, winding ribbon-like across the plain, hurried little flocks of men--now seen for the first time--with glittering arms; and last and worst--when some half-hour had elapsed, and I still watched--from a distant suburb westward boomed out a sudden volley, and then dropping shots. The pigeons still wheeled, in a shining, shifting cloud, above the roofs, and the sparrows twittered round me, and on the tower, and on the roof below, where a few domestics clustered, all was sunshine and quiet and peace. But down in the streets, there, I knew that death was at work.