Trois gros navir’ sont arrives Charges d’avoin’, charges de ble.” For an hour and more their fantastic songs delighted the simple folk. They stopped at last in front of the Louis Quinze. The windows of Valmond’s chambers were alight, and to one a staff was fastened. Suddenly the Kalathumpians quieted where they stood, for the voice of their leader, a sort of fat King of Yvetot, cried out: “See there, my noisy children!” It was the inventive lime-burner who spoke. “What come you here for, my rollicking blades?” “We are a long way from home; we are looking for our brother, your Majesty,” they cried in chorus. “Ha, ha! What is your brother like, jolly dogs?” “He has a face of ivory, and eyes like torches, and he carries a silver sword.” “But what the devil is his face like ivory for, my fanfarons?” “So that he shall not blush for us. He is a grand seigneur,” they shouted back. “Why are his eyes like torches, my ragamuffins?” “To show us the way home.” Valmond appeared upon the balcony. “What is it you wish, my children?” he asked. “Brother,” said the fantastic leader, “we’ve lost our way. Will you lead us home again?” “It is a long travel,” he answered, after the fashion of their own symbols. “There are high hills to climb; there may be wild beasts in the way; and storms come down the mountains.” “We have strong hearts, and you have a silver sword, brother.” “I cannot see your faces, to know if you are true, my children,” he answered. Instantly the clothes flew off, masks fell, pumpkins came crashing to the ground, the stilts of the marshals dropped, and thirty men stood upon the drays in crude military order, with muskets in their hands and cockades in their caps. At that moment also, a flag--the Tricolor--fluttered upon the staff at Valmond’s window. The roll of a drum came out of the street somewhere, and presently the people fell back before sixty armed men, marching in columns, under Lagroin, while from the opposite direction came Lajeunesse with sixty others, silent all, till they reached the drays and formed round them slowly. Valmond stood watching intently, and the people were very still, for this seemed like real life, and no burlesque. Some of the soldiery had military clothes, old militia uniforms, or the rebel trappings of ‘37; others, less fortunate, wore their trousers in long boots, their coats buttoned lightly over their chests, and belted in; and the Napoleonic cockade was in every cap. “My children,” said Valmond at last, “I see that your hearts are strong, and that you have the bodies of true men. We have sworn fealty to each other, and the badge of our love is in your caps. Let us begin our journey home. I will come down among you: I will come down among you, and I will lead you from Pontiac to the sea, gathering comrades as we go; then across the sea, to France; then to Paris and the Tuileries, where an Orleans usurps the place of a Napoleon.”