on't understand you," he added.

"But you will, M. de Lesdiguieres. You will," said Andre-Louis, and so
departed.

CHAPTER VII. THE WIND

He had broken his futile lance with the windmill--the image suggested by
M. de Kercadiou persisted in his mind--and it was, he perceived, by sheer
good fortune that he had escaped without hurt. There remained the wind
itself--the whirlwind. And the events in Rennes, reflex of the graver
events in Nantes, had set that wind blowing in his favour.

He set out briskly to retrace his steps towards the Place Royale, where
the gathering of the populace was greatest, where, as he judged, lay the
heart and brain of this commotion that was exciting the city.

But the commotion that he had left there was as nothing to the commotion
which he found on his return. Then there had been a comparative hush
to listen to the voice of a speaker who denounced the First and Second
Estates from the pedestal of the statue of Louis XV. Now the air was
vibrant with the voice of the multitude itself, raised in anger. Here
and there men were fighting with canes and fists; everywhere a
fierce excitement raged, and the gendarmes sent thither by the King's
Lieutenant to restore and maintain order were so much helpless flotsam
in that tempestuous human ocean.

There were cries of "To the Palais! To the Palais! Down with the
assassins! Down with the nobles! To the Palais!"

An artisan who stood shoulder to shoulder with him in the press
enlightened Andre-Louis on the score of the increased excitement.

"They've shot him dead. His body is lying there where it fell at the
foot of the statue. And there was another student killed not an hour ago
over there by the cathedral works. Pardi! If they can't prevail in one
way they'll prevail in another." The man was fiercely emphatic. "They'll
stop at nothing. If they can't overawe us, by God, they'll assassinate
us. They are determined to conduct these States of Brittany in their own
way. No interests but their own shall be considered."

Andre-Louis left him still talking, and clove himself a way through that
human press.

At the statue's base he came upon a little cluster of students about the
body of the murdered lad, all stricken with fear and helplessness.

"You here, Moreau!" said a voice.

He looked round to find himself confronted by a slight, swarthy man
of little more than thirty, firm of mouth and impertinent of nose,
who considered him with disa