to the hogs!" cried the beggar.

"Take care," Gougeon grumbled.

"What do you mean, beast?" retorted his amiable spouse.

"That there are plenty of _sheep_[1] on this street."

[Note 1: Spies.]

"Curse the _sheep_!" ejaculated the Admiral. "Go everywhere, all of you,
and rouse the Galley and all ragmen for to-morrow at the Quai Pelletier
at half-past seven. Return here by six sharp."

By six next morning the Council had returned, and their friends as they
left the door hung about the street corner near by, amusing themselves
by striking the lamp with their sticks.

At half-past six the Council issued, shouting--

"To the execution!"

Hache ran up the middle of the street repeating the cry in his
stentorian voice, so that as he rushed along the dingy houses poured
forth their contents after him like swarms of bees; boys, men, and women
mingling pell-mell, half clothed, unkempt, fierce-mouthed, wild-faced,
ignorant.

Motte, the beggar, took up the words and sped like the wind up the
narrow side streets and lanes, shouting, "To the execution!"

Wife Gougeon screamed it. Even her husband opened his malign jaws from
time to time and automatically gave vent to a harsh shout.

Thus sown, it became a cry springing up everywhere. The whole quarter of
St. Marcel grew alive, and an immense crowd ran together into the
neighbouring square. Little direction was needed to band them into a
marching mob, waving clubs, pikes, and bottles, dancing, quarrelling and
howling, with ribald songs and shouts of "To the execution!" In one
thing they differed notably from a similar crowd in this century, could
such be imagined. Ragged and wretched though they were, they wore
_colour_ in profusion. The mass was a rich subject for the artist.

Among the women at the front was seen Wife Gougeon brandishing her
pistol. The Admiral and Hache were at her side haranguing the leaders.
Surging along, the demoniac screams of drunken women and the babel of
shouting men, as they approached each new neighbourhood, seemed to stir
it to its depths and to add to the rear a new contingent.

Thus their numbers swelled at every street, and the excitement increased
to a pitch beyond description. They swept forward by the Rue Mouffetard
and through the Latin Quarter till they reached the broad Boulevard St.
Germain. Turning along the latter through the Rue St. Jacques they
suddenly increased their speed and uproar, and thundered across the
Petit Pont