"

Georges kept silence.

"Oh, very good, be silent if you choose. You will soon confess on the
holy rack," said Tristan.

"That's what I call business!" cried Cornelius.

"Take him off," said the grand provost to the guards.

Georges d'Estouteville asked permission to dress himself. On a sign from
their chief, the men put on his clothing with the clever rapidity of a
nurse who profits by the momentary tranquillity of her nursling.

An immense crowd cumbered the rue du Murier. The growls of the populace
kept increasing, and seemed the precursors of a riot. From early morning
the news of the robbery had spread through the town. On all sides
the "apprentice," said to be young and handsome, had awakened public
sympathy, and revived the hatred felt against Cornelius; so that there
was not a young man in the town, nor a young woman with a fresh face and
pretty feet to exhibit, who was not determined to see the victim. When
Georges issued from the house, led by one of the provost's guard, who,
after he had mounted his horse, kept the strong leathern thong that
bound the prisoner tightly twisted round his arm, a horrible uproar
arose. Whether the populace merely wished to see this new victim, or
whether it intended to rescue him, certain it is that those behind
pressed those in front upon the little squad of cavalry posted around
the Malemaison. At this moment, Cornelius, aided by his sister, closed
the door, and slammed the iron shutters with the violence of panic
terror. Tristan, who was not accustomed to respect the populace of those
days (inasmuch as they were not yet the sovereign people), cared little
for a probable riot.

"Push on! push on!" he said to his men.

At the voice of their leader the archers spurred their horses towards
the end of the street. The crowd, seeing one or two of their number
knocked down by the horses and trampled on, and some others pressed
against the sides of the horses and nearly suffocated, took the wiser
course of retreating to their homes.

"Make room for the king's justice!" cried Tristan. "What are you doing
here? Do you want to be hanged too? Go home, my friends, go home; your
dinner is getting burnt. Hey! my good woman, go and darn your husband's
stockings; get back to your needles."

Though such speeches showed that the grand provost was in good humor,
they made the most obstreperous fly as if he were flinging the plague
upon them.

At the moment when the first movement o