oaks. When they reached a certain spot these men appeared to be
annihilated, one after the other, as if the earth had opened under their
feet. Gondy, edged into a corner, saw them vanish from the first until
the last but one. The last raised his eyes, to ascertain, doubtless,
that neither his companions nor himself had been watched, and, in spite
of the darkness, he perceived Gondy. He walked straight up to him and
placed a pistol to his throat.

"Halloo! Monsieur de Rochefort," said Gondy, laughing, "are you a boy to
play with firearms?"

Rochefort recognized the voice.

"Ah, it is you, my lord!" said he.

"The very same. What people are you leading thus into the bowels of the
earth?"

"My fifty recruits from the Chevalier d'Humieres, who are destined to
enter the light cavalry and who have only received as yet for their
equipment their white cloaks."

"And where are you going?"

"To the house of one of my friends, a sculptor, only we enter by the
trap through which he lets down his marble."

"Very good," said Gondy, shaking Rochefort by the hand, who descended in
his turn and closed the trap after him.

It was now one o'clock in the morning and the coadjutor returned
home. He opened a window and leaned out to listen. A strange,
incomprehensible, unearthly sound seemed to pervade the whole city;
one felt that something unusual and terrible was happening in all the
streets, now dark as ocean's most unfathomable caves. From time to time
a dull sound was heard, like that of a rising tempest or a billow of the
sea; but nothing clear, nothing distinct, nothing intelligible; it was
like those mysterious subterraneous noises that precede an earthquake.

The work of revolt continued the whole night thus. The next morning, on
awaking, Paris seemed to be startled at her own appearance. It was
like a besieged town. Armed men, shouldering muskets, watched over the
barricades with menacing looks; words of command, patrols, arrests,
executions, even, were encountered at every step. Those bearing plumed
hats and gold swords were stopped and made to cry, "Long live Broussel!"
"Down with Mazarin!" and whoever refused to comply with this ceremony
was hooted at, spat upon and even beaten. They had not yet begun
to slay, but it was well felt that the inclination to do so was not
wanting.

The barricades had been pushed as far as the Palais Royal. From the
Rue de Bons Enfants to that of the Ferronnerie, from the Rue Saint
Th