he
had come upon the mob at Rennes. He would lose nothing of the surprise
effect of his entrance.

The precincts of that house of commerce were jealously kept by a line
of ushers armed with staves, a guard as hurriedly assembled by the
merchants as it was evidently necessary. One of these now effectively
barred the young lawyer's passage as he attempted to mount the steps.

Andre-Louis announced himself in a whisper.

The stave was instantly raised from the horizontal, and he passed and
went up the steps in the wake of the usher. At the top, on the threshold
of the chamber, he paused, and stayed his guide.

"I will wait here," he announced. "Bring the president to me."

"Your name, monsieur?"

Almost had Andre-Louis answered him when he remembered Le Chapelier's
warning of the danger with which his mission was fraught, and Le
Chapelier's parting admonition to conceal his identity.

"My name is unknown to him; it matters nothing; I am the mouthpiece of a
people, no more. Go."

The usher went, and in the shadow of that lofty, pillared portico
Andre-Louis waited, his eyes straying out ever and anon to survey that
spread of upturned faces immediately below him.

Soon the president came, others following, crowding out into the
portico, jostling one another in their eagerness to hear the news.

"You are a messenger from Rennes?"

"I am the delegate sent by the Literary Chamber of that city to inform
you here in Nantes of what is taking place."

"Your name?"

Andre-Louis paused. "The less we mention names perhaps the better."

The president's eyes grew big with gravity. He was a corpulent, florid
man, purse-proud, and self-sufficient.

He hesitated a moment. Then--"Come into the Chamber," said he.

"By your leave, monsieur, I will deliver my message from here--from these
steps."

"From here?" The great merchant frowned.

"My message is for the people of Nantes, and from here I can speak
at once to the greatest number of Nantais of all ranks, and it is my
desire--and the desire of those whom I represent--that as great a number
as possible should hear my message at first hand."

"Tell me, sir, is it true that the King has dissolved the States?"

Andre-Louis looked at him. He smiled apologetically, and waved a hand
towards the crowd, which by now was straining for a glimpse of this slim
young man who had brought forth the president and more than half the
numbers of the Chamber, guessing already, with that