"I have not found any workmen in Hugueville, lieutenant," he said, "to break in the door. They have all left their workshops, to avoid doing it. Their curé has made fanatics of them. I am going to ask you to give me your assistance. Here is my requisition." And he handed the lieutenant a paper which he ran through with his eyes. The spectators of this tragic episode--one more incident in the lamentable tale of the most criminal of religious wars--saw only the helmet bending over the document, which the constantly increasing wind seemed to try to tear from the hand that held it. "I have brought the drummer to make the announcement," added the commissioner. "Very good," said Landri, in a voice choked with emotion, "let him do so." In the same hollow voice he ordered the six sappers to take their axes and follow him. He began to mount the steps, while the three rolls of the drum announced the imminence of the catastrophe. They were followed by several minutes of painful anticipation. Landri, standing now on the platform, had halted, and he said no word. As he ascended the steps, he had looked up at the great clock over the portal of the church. It marked almost nine o'clock. At that moment the Marquis de Claviers was on Rue de Solferino. They were about to remove the bier of the man for whom he wept as a friend, as a brother. Tears were streaming down his noble face. His great heart was torn with grief. That vision had arisen before the lieutenant with a distinctness which brought him abruptly to a standstill. He, the son of the Judas, was on the point of making that heart bleed from another wound! "Well, lieutenant!" said the commissioner. "I believe the time has come." "No," replied Landri, rousing himself forcibly from his abstraction and speaking now in a firm voice, "no, I refuse." "You refuse?" said the sub-prefect, coming forward. "But have you duly considered the consequences, monsieur--Article 234 of the Penal Code?" "I refuse," reiterated the young man; and with a military salute to the three officials, who were motionless with amazement, he ran rapidly down the steps which he had climbed so slowly, followed by the sappers. "To horse!" he cried, when he reached the foot; and in the next breath, "By fours, march!" Five minutes later there was not a single dragoon on the square, but an enthusiastic crowd followed on the heels of the officials as they returned to their landau, with shouts of "Vive l'armée! Vive le lieutenant!" "I can't understand it at all," said the commissioner, as the carriage moved away; "I'd have sworn that that officer would obey. As you saw, he didn't argue, as they usually do, about the text of the requisition." "I thought as you did," replied the recording clerk; "I said to myself: 'We sha'n't have to come to this port again,' and I was mighty glad. If it hadn't been for the curé those beasts would have done us a bad turn." "Do you know what his name is?" queried the sub-prefect.