front of the Prefecture,
where lay unlimited reserves, civil and military, under arms. The
royalists had somewhat overstrained the complaisance of the
authorities.

Acting at once on the hint of the police official, the crowd broke up
into small groups. "A la Concorde! A la Concorde! Concorde!" they
cried.

This revolutionary rendezvous was prearranged to mean Place du
Carrousel, conditional on police interference. It was to deceive the
authorities, the main object being to form a junction with the
anticipated hordes from Montmartre and La Villette.

But a mob broken into scattered groups is no longer a mob, and being
no longer a mob, there is no longer courage or cohesion of purpose.
Instead of some four hundred students and about a hundred roughs, not
more than fifty of the former responded at the foot of the Gambetta
monument, while the latter class had gathered strength by the way.

This discrepancy, though painfully apparent to Jean Marot and his
friends, in no wise dampened their ardor. Their chosen speakers lashed
them into fresh furors of patriotism while they waited. The eloquent
young man who quoted the words of Gambetta engraved on his monument
wrung tears from his sympathetic auditors. These words of wisdom and
patriotism had no pertinence whatever to the work in hand,--which was
to break up a meeting organized by some distinguished philanthropists,
scholars, and their friends in the interests of civil liberty and the
perpetuity of human rights,--but everything serves as fuel to a flame
well started.

Carried away by the spirit of exaltation, Jean Marot clambered upon
the monument itself, and ascending the heroic figure of Gambetta amid
the wild plaudits of the mob, kissed the mute stone lips. His hat had
fallen to the ground, and now the hysterical crowd tore it into bits
and scrambled for the pieces, which they pinned on their breasts as
precious souvenirs of the occasion.

When Jean reached the earth it was to be frantically embraced on every
side. A great, broad-shouldered, big-bearded man in a cap and the
blouse of the artisan crowned this exciting ceremony by kissing the
young student full on the mouth.

A score of hats were tendered, but Jean accepted the cap of the
stalwart workman, who immediately brandished his club and shouted "En
avant!" He unwound his soiled red sash as he started, and, making it
deftly into a sort of turban, constituted himself Jean's special
body-guard for the day.