e Royal
Angouleme. It was commanded by a man who had assumed the title of
Lieutenant-General of the Emancipating Army of Vaucluse. These forces
drew up under the windows of the "Palais Royal." They were composed
almost entirely of Provenceaux, and spoke the same dialect as the people
of the lower orders. The crowd asked the soldiers for what they had
come, why they did not leave them to accomplish an act of justice in
peace, and if they intended to interfere. "Quite the contrary," said one
of the soldiers; "pitch him out of the window, and we will catch him on
the points of our bayonets." Brutal cries of joy greeted this answer,
succeeded by a short silence, but it was easy to see that under the
apparent calm the crowd was in a state of eager expectation. Soon new
shouts were heard, but this time from the interior of the hotel; a small
band of men led by Forges and Roquefort had separated themselves from
the throng, and by the help of ladders had scaled the walls and got on
the roof of the house, and, gliding down the other side, had dropped
into the balcony outside the windows of the rooms where the marshal was
writing.

Some of these dashed through the windows without waiting to open them,
others rushed in at the open door. The marshal, thus taken by surprise,
rose, and not wishing that the letter he was writing to the Austrian
commandant to claim his protection should fall into the hands of these
wretches, he tore it to pieces. Then a man who belonged to a better
class than the others, and who wears to-day the Cross of the Legion
of Honour, granted to him perhaps for his conduct on this occasion,
advanced towards the marshal, sword in hand, and told him if he had any
last arrangements to make, he should make them at once, for he had only
ten minutes to live.

"What are you thinking of?" exclaimed Forges. "Ten minutes! Did he give
the Princesse de Lamballe ten minutes?" and he pointed his pistol at
the marshal's breast; but the marshal striking up the weapon, the shot
missed its aim and buried itself in the ceiling.

"Clumsy fellow!" said the marshal, shrugging his shoulders, "not to be
able to kill a man at such close range."

"That's true," replied Roquefort in his patois. "I'll show you how to do
it"; and, receding a step, he took aim with his carbine at his victim,
whose back was partly towards him. A report was heard, and the marshal
fell dead on the spot, the bullet which entered at the shoulder going
right