ing the windows and breaking in the street
door. The square was full to overflowing, everywhere threatening cries
were heard, and above all the terrible zaou, which from moment to moment
became more full of menace. M. Moulin saw that if they could not hold
out until the troops under Major Lambot arrived, all was lost; he
therefore told Vernet to settle the business of those who were breaking
in the door, while he would take charge of those who were trying to get
in at the window. Thus these two men, moved by a common impulse and of
equal courage, undertook to dispute with a howling mob the possession of
the blood for which it thirsted.

Both dashed to their posts, one in the hall, the other in the
dining-room, and found door and windows already smashed, and several men
in the house. At the sight of Vernet, with whose immense strength they
were acquainted, those in the hall drew back a step, and Vernet, taking
advantage of this movement, succeeded in ejecting them and in securing
the door once more. Meantime M. Moulin, seizing his double-barrelled
gun, which stood in the chimney-corner, pointed it at five men who
had got into the dining-room, and threatened to fire if they did
not instantly get out again. Four obeyed, but one refused to budge;
whereupon Moulin, finding himself no longer outnumbered, laid aside his
gun, and, seizing his adversary round the waist, lifted him as if he
were a child and flung him out of the window. The man died three weeks
later, not from the fall but from the squeeze.

Moulin then dashed to the window to secure it, but as he laid his hand
on it he felt his head seized from behind and pressed violently down on
his left shoulder; at the same instant a pane was broken into
splinters, and the head of a hatchet struck his right shoulder. M. de
Saint-Chamans, who had followed him into the room, had seen the weapon
thrown at Moulin's head, and not being able to turn aside the iron, had
turned aside the object at which it was aimed. Moulin seized the hatchet
by the handle and tore it out of the hands of him who had delivered the
blow, which fortunately had missed its aim. He then finished closing
the window, and secured it by making fast the inside shutters, and went
upstairs to see after the marshal.

Him he found striding up and down his room, his handsome and noble face
as calm as if the voices of all those shouting men outside were not
demanding his death. Moulin made him leave No. 1 for No. 3