evious evening
seemed to die away in the darkness. In the morning there were gloomy
faces; sad looks were exchanged, followed by discouraging silence.
Terrifying rumours were now circulating. Bad news, which the leaders
had managed to conceal the previous evening, had spread abroad, though
nobody in particular was known to have spoken. It was the work of
that invisible voice, which, with a word, throws a mob into a panic.
According to some reports Paris was subdued, and the provinces had
offered their hands and feet, eager to be bound. And it was added that
a large party of troops, which had left Marseilles under the command of
Colonel Masson and Monsieur de Bleriot, the prefect of the department,
was advancing by forced marches to disperse the insurrectionary bands.
This news came like a thunderbolt, at once awakening rage and despair.
These men, who on the previous evening had been all aglow with patriotic
fever, now shivered with cold, chilled to their hearts by the shameful
submissiveness of prostrate France. They alone, then, had had the
courage to do their duty! And now they were to be left to perish amidst
the general panic, the death-like silence of the country; they had
become mere rebels, who would be hunted down like wild beasts; they,
who had dreamed of a great war, of a whole nation in revolt, and of
the glorious conquest of the people's rights! Miserably baffled and
betrayed, this handful of men could but weep for their dead faith and
their vanished dreams of justice. There were some who, while taunting
France with her cowardice, flung away their arms, and sat down by the
roadside, declaring that they would there await the bullets of the
troops, and show how Republicans could die.

Although these men had nothing now but death or exile before them,
there were very few desertions from their ranks. A splendid feeling of
solidarity kept them together. Their indignation turned chiefly against
their leaders, who had really proved incapable. Irreparable mistakes
had been committed; and now the insurgents, without order or discipline,
barely protected by a few sentries, and under the command of irresolute
men, found themselves at the mercy of the first soldiers that might
arrive.

They spent two more days at Orcheres, Tuesday and Wednesday, thus losing
time and aggravating the situation. The general, the man with the sabre,
whom Silvere had pointed out to Miette on the Plassans road, vacillated
and hesitated und