embled. Their purpose was to sing the
Marseillaise. The 14th Regiment barred the way--the street was dimly
lighted--a single row of lamps along the courtyard wall was all the
illumination--a double line of troops was the defence.

"Let me pass!" cried the officer of the National Guard who led the
people to the officer who led the troops.

"Impossible!"

"In the name of the people, I demand to pass!"

"In the name of the Law, you shall not!"

"The people command! Forward!" cried the National Guard.

"Present! Fire!" shouted the officer.

There was a roll of musketry--a shrill shriek rang along the
Boulevard--the vast mass recoiled--the smoke floated off--sixty-three of
the people of Paris lay weltering in their gore!

"The blow is struck at last!" cried M. Dantes, rushing across the
Boulevard, pale and excited. "To arms, people of Paris, to arms!"

"To arms, to arms! Vengeance for our brothers!" was now the terrible cry
that burst from the infuriated populace. The congratulation--the
illumination--all was lost in the wild wish for vengeance.

At eleven o'clock that night an immense multitude, composed chiefly of
workmen from the faubourgs, was coming down the Boulevard des Capucines.
It was the largest and most regular throng yet seen. In front marched a
platoon of men bearing torches and waving tri-color flags. Immediately
behind walked an officer in the full uniform of the National Guard, with
a drawn sword in his hand, whose slightest command was implicitly
observed. Next came a tumbrel bearing the naked corpses of the slain,
whose faces, mutilated by their wounds and disfigured by blood, glared
horribly up, with open eyes, in the red torchlight that flared in the
night blast around! Behind this awful display marched a dense mass of
National Guards, succeeded by a countless mass of the people armed
with, guns, swords, clubs and bars of iron, chanting forth in full
chorus, not the inspiring Marseillaise or the Parisienne, but in awful
concert sending upon the night air the deep and dreadful notes of the
death-hymn of the Girondins, "Mourir pour la Patrie," intermingled with
yells for vengeance.

Down the boulevards approach the multitude--more distinct becomes the
dirge--more redly glare the torches--and, amid all, more deeply rumble
the wheels of the death-cart on the pavement!

The funeral column reaches the corner of the Boulevard and the Rue
Lepelletier--the death-hymn rises to a yell of fury--the off