three o'clock. Some one told us so just now."

"Where are they going?" said Fontrailles.

"There are more than two hundred of them to escort Monsieur de Chavigny,
who is going to see the old cat at Narbonne, they say. They thought it
safer to pass by the Louvre."

"Well, we will give him a velvet paw!" said the Abbe.

As he finished saying this, a noise of carriages and horses was heard.
Several men in cloaks rolled an enormous stone into the middle of the
street. The foremost cavaliers passed rapidly through the crowd,
pistols in hand, suspecting that something unusual was going on; but
the postilion, who drove the horses of the first carriage, ran upon the
stone and fell.

"Whose carriage is this which thus crushes foot-passengers?" cried the
cloakmen, all at once. "It is tyrannical. It can be no other than a
friend of the Cardinal de la Rochelle."

[During the long siege of La Rochelle, this name was given to
Cardinal Richelieu, to ridicule his obstinacy in commanding as
General-in-Chief, and claiming for himself the merit of taking that
town.]

"It is one who fears not the friends of the little Le Grand," exclaimed
a voice from the open door, from which a man threw himself upon a horse.

"Drive these Cardinalists into the river!" cried a shrill, piercing
voice.

This was a signal for the pistol-shots which were furiously exchanged on
every side, and which lighted up this tumultuous and sombre scene. The
clashing of swords and trampling of horses did not prevent the cries
from being heard on one side: "Down with the minister! Long live
the King! Long live Monsieur and Monsieur le Grand! Down with the
red-stockings!" On the other: "Long live his Eminence! Long live the
great Cardinal! Death to the factious! Long live the King!" For the name
of the King presided over every hatred, as over every affection, at this
strange time.

The men on foot had succeeded, however, in placing the two carriages
across the quay so as to make a rampart against Chavigny's horses,
and from this, between the wheels, through the doors and springs,
overwhelmed them with pistol-shots, and dismounted many. The tumult was
frightful, but suddenly the gates of the Louvre were thrown open, and
two squadrons of the body-guard came out at a trot. Most of them carried
torches in their hands to light themselves and those they were about
to attack. The scene changed. As the guards reached each of the men on
foot, the latter wa