l and the Lancers.

Colonel Roussille, who is in command of the troops at the gate, sends a
hasty messenger to General Marchand: "The brigand demands that we open
the gate!" reports the messenger breathlessly.

"Tell the Colonel to give the order to fire," is Marchand's peremptory
response.

"Are you coming with me, M. le Comte?" he asks hurriedly. But he does
not wait for a reply. Wrapping his cloak around him, he goes in the wake
of the messenger. M. le Comte de Cambray is close on his heels.

Five minutes later the General is up on the ramparts. He has thrown a
quick, piercing glance round him. There are two thousand men up here,
twenty guns, ammunition in plenty. Out there only peasants and a
heterogeneous band of some fifteen hundred men. One shot from a gun
perhaps would send all that crowd flying, the first fusillade might
scatter "the band of brigands," but Marchand cannot, dare not give the
positive order to fire; he knows that rank insubordination, positive
refusal to obey would follow.

He talks to the men, he harangues, he begs them to defend their city
against this "horde of Corsican pirates."

To every word he says, the men but oppose the one cry: "Vive
l'Empereur!"

The Comte de Cambray turns in despair to M. de St. Genis, who is a
captain of artillery and whose men had hitherto been supposed to be
tried and loyal royalists.

"If the men won't fire, Maurice," asks the Comte in despair, "cannot the
officers at least fire the first shot?"

"M. le Comte," replies St. Genis through set teeth, for his heart was
filled with wrath and shame at the defection of his men, "the gunners
have declared that if the officers shoot, the men will shatter them to
pieces with their own batteries."

The crowds outside the gate itself are swelling visibly. They press in
from every side toward the city loudly demanding the surrender of the
town. "Open the gates! open!" they shout, and their clamour becomes more
insistent every moment. Already they have broken down the palisades
which surround the military zone, they pour down the slopes against the
gate. But the latter is heavy, and massive, studded with iron, stoutly
resisting axe or pick.

"Open!" they cry. "Open! in the Emperor's name!"

They are within hailing distance of the soldiers on the ramparts: "What
price your plums?" they shout gaily to the gunners.

"Quite cheap," retort the latter with equal gaiety, "but there's no
danger of the Emperor getting a