etly to bed, permission would
be given to all the young gentlemen above fifteen years of age to go
down to the town until eleven o'clock. The proposal was refused with
outcries of indignation. We now had many leaders, and the shouts "Force
the door!" became really dreadful. Gradually the lesser boys gave back,
and the young men formed a dense front line, facing the sixteen masters,
whose position was fortified by the pillars supporting the orchestra,
and whose rear was strengthened by the servants of the household. As
yet, the scholars stood with nothing offensive in their hands, and with
their arms folded in desperate quietude. At last, there was a voice a
good way in the _rear_, which accounts for the bravery of the owner,
that shouted, "Why don't you rally, and force the door?" Here Monsieur
Moineau, a French emigre, and our Gallic tutor, cried out lustily, "You
shall force that door, never--_jamais, jamais_--my pretty _garcons, mes
chers pupils_, be good, be quiet--go you couch yourselves--les _feux
d'artifice_! bah! they worth noding at all--you go to bed. Ah, ah,
_demain_--all have _conge_--one two, half-holiday--but you force this
door--_par ma foi, e--jamais_--you go out, one, two, three, _four_--go
over dis _corps_, of Antoine Auguste Moineau."

We gave the brave fellow a hearty cheer for his loyalty; and, I have no
doubt, had he he been allowed to remain, he would have been trampled to
death on his post. He had lost his rank, his fortune, everything but
his self-respect, in the quarrel of his king, who had just fallen on the
scaffold; he had a great respect for constituted authority, and was
sadly grieved at being obliged to honour heroism in spite of himself,
when arrayed against it.

Let us pause over these proceedings, and return to myself. As the
rebellion increased, I seemed to be receiving the elements of a new
life. My limbs trembled, but it was with a fierce joy. I ran hither
and thither exultingly--I pushed aside boys three or four years older
than myself--I gnashed my teeth, I stamped, I clenched my hands,--I
wished to harangue, but I could not find utterance, for the very excess
of thoughts. At that moment I would not be put down; I grinned defiance
in the face of my late scorners; I was drunk with the exciting draught
of contention. The timid gave me their fireworks, the brave applauded
my resolution, and, as I went from one party to another, exhorting more
by gesture than by speech,