lackened the rolling of his
drum, and stood still: his companions turned round in surprise--he had
turned green; his legs gave way, he stammered some unintelligible words,
and had fallen upon the pavement before those in the front rank had time
to pause. The overwhelming rapidity of this attack startled for a moment
the most hardened among the surrounding spectators; for, wondering at
the interruption, a part of the crowd had rushed towards the soldiers.

At sight of the dying man, supported in the arms of two of his comrades,
one of the individuals, who, concealed under the arch, had watched the
beginning of the popular excitement, said to the drummers: "Your comrade
drank, perhaps, at some fountain on the road?"

"Yes, sir," replied one; "he was very thirsty; he drank two mouthfuls of
water on the Place du Chatelet."

"Then he is poisoned," said the man.

"Poisoned?" cried several voices.

"It is not surprising," replied the man, in a mysterious tone; "poison
is thrown into the public fountains; and this very morning a man was
massacred in the Rue Beaubourg who was discovered emptying a paper of
arsenic into a pot of wine at a public-house."(38)

Having said these words, the man disappeared in the crowd. This report,
no less absurd than the tales about the poisoning of the Hospital
patients, was received with a general burst of indignation. Five or
six ragged beings, regular ruffians, seized the body of the expiring
drummer, hoisted it upon their shoulders, in spite of all the efforts
of his comrades to prevent them, and paraded the square exhibiting the
dismal trophy. Ciboule and the quarryman went before, crying: "Wake way
for the corpse! This is how they poison the people!"

A fresh incident now attracted the attention of the crowd. A travelling
carriage, which had not been able to pass along the Quai-Napoleon, the
pavement of which was up, had ventured among the intricate streets of
the city, and now arrived in the square of Notre-Dame on its way to the
other side of the Seine. Like many others, its owners were flying from
Paris, to escape the pestilence which decimated it. A man-servant and a
lady's maid were in the rumble, and they exchanged a glance of alarm as
they passed the Hospital, whilst a young man seated in the front part
of the carriage let down the glass, and called to the postilions to go
slowly, for fear of accident, as the crowd was very dense at that part
of the square. This young man was L