not leave them to accomplish an act of justice in
peace, and if they intended to interfere. "Quite the contrary," said one
of the soldiers; "pitch him out of the window, and we will catch him on
the points of our bayonets." Brutal cries of joy greeted this answer,
succeeded by a short silence, but it was easy to see that under the
apparent calm the crowd was in a state of eager expectation. Soon new
shouts were heard, but this time from the interior of the hotel; a small
band of men led by Forges and Roquefort had separated themselves from the
throng, and by the help of ladders had scaled the walls and got on the
roof of the house, and, gliding down the other side, had dropped into the
balcony outside the windows of the rooms where the marshal was writing.

Some of these dashed through the windows without waiting to open them,
others rushed in at the open door. The marshal, thus taken by surprise,
rose, and not wishing that the letter he was writing to the Austrian
commandant to claim his protection should fall into the hands of these
wretches, he tore it to pieces. Then a man who belonged to a better
class than the others, and who wears to-day the Cross of the Legion of
Honour, granted to him perhaps for his conduct on this occasion, advanced
towards the marshal, sword in hand, and told him if he had any last
arrangements to make, he should make them at once, for he had only ten
minutes to live.

"What are you thinking of?" exclaimed Forges. "Ten minutes! Did he give
the Princesse de Lamballe ten minutes?" and he pointed his pistol at the
marshal's breast; but the marshal striking up the weapon, the shot missed
its aim and buried itself in the ceiling.

"Clumsy fellow!" said the marshal, shrugging his shoulders, "not to be
able to kill a man at such close range."

"That's true," replied Roquefort in his patois. "I'll show you how to do
it"; and, receding a step, he took aim with his carbine at his victim,
whose back was partly towards him. A report was heard, and the marshal
fell dead on the spot, the bullet which entered at the shoulder going
right through his body and striking the opposite wall.

The two shots, which had been heard in the street, made the howling mob
dance for joy. One cowardly fellow, called Cadillan, rushed out on one
of the balconies which looked on the square, and, holding a loaded pistol
in each hand, which he had not dared to discharge even into the dead body
of the murdered man,