diately behind him.

"Mon Dieu! What is this?"

They had descended four steps to the floor, and now the exclamation
burst from them simultaneously.

For a minute they stood, half breathless, looking about them.

They seemed to be in an empty room embracing the entire unfinished
garret of a house, gable to gable. The space was all roof and
floor,--that is, the roof rose abruptly from the floor on two sides to
the comb above.

As the eye became accustomed to the place, it first took in the small
square boxes, some of which had evidently been unpacked or prepared
for that process, the litter being scattered about the floor,--the
boxes similar to those stored in the dark room below. There were
roughly constructed platforms beneath all of the windows, with steps
leading up to the same. Beneath these platforms and along the whole of
one side of the room were wooden arm-racks glistening with arms of the
latest model. Belts, cartridge-boxes, bayonets, swords, an immense
assortment of military paraphernalia, lay piled on the floor at one
end of the room.

At the opposite end was mounted on a swivel a one-pound Maxim
rapid-firer, the wall in front of it being pierced to the last brick.

A few blows, and lo! the muzzle of the modern death-dealer!

Along the lower edge of the roof towards the Pantheon might have been
found numerous similar places, requiring only a thrust to become
loopholes for prostrate riflemen.

The most cursory glance from the windows above showed that these
commanded the Place du Pantheon and Rue Soufflot,--the scene of bloody
street battles of every revolutionary epoch.

Fifty active men from this vantage could have rendered either street
or barricade untenable, or as support to a barricade in the Place du
Pantheon have made such a barricade impregnable to exposed troops.

"It is admirable!" cried Jean, lost in contemplation of the strategic
importance of the position.

"It is wonderful, but----"

"Artillery? Yes," he interrupted, anticipating her reasoning; "but
artillery could not be elevated to command this place from the street,
and as for Mont Valerien----"

"The Pantheon----"

"Yes,--exactly,--they would never risk the Pantheon. Even the
Prussians spared that."

"Oh, Monsieur Jean, see!"

She had discovered a white silk flag embroidered with the lilies of
France.

"The wretches! They would restore the hated emblem of the Louis! This
is too much!" he exclaimed, in wrath.

"It i