and how they swept the streets clean of that rabble of
nobles--cette canaille noble..."

Applause interrupted him. The phrase had struck home and caught. Those
who had writhed under that infamous designation from their betters leapt
at this turning of it against the nobles themselves.

"But let me tell you of their leader--le pins noble de cette canaille,
ou bien le plus canaille de ces nobles! You know him--that one. He fears
many things, but the voice of truth he fears most. With such as him the
eloquent truth eloquently spoken is a thing instantly to be silenced.
So he marshalled his peers and their valetailles, and led them out to
slaughter these miserable bourgeois who dared to raise a voice. But
these same miserable bourgeois did not choose to be slaughtered in the
streets of Rennes. It occurred to them that since the nobles decreed
that blood should flow, it might as well be the blood of the nobles.
They marshalled themselves too--this noble rabble against the rabble of
nobles--and they marshalled themselves so well that they drove M. de La
Tour d'Azyr and his warlike following from the field with broken
heads and shattered delusions. They sought shelter at the hands of
the Cordeliers; and the shavelings gave them sanctuary in their
convent--those who survived, among whom was their proud leader, M. de La
Tour d'Azyr. You have heard of this valiant Marquis, this great lord of
life and death?"

The pit was in an uproar a moment. It quieted again as Scaramouche
continued:

"Oh, it was a fine spectacle to see this mighty hunter scuttling to
cover like a hare, going to earth in the Cordelier Convent. Rennes has
not seen him since. Rennes would like to see him again. But if he is
valorous, he is also discreet. And where do you think he has taken
refuge, this great nobleman who wanted to see the streets of Rennes
washed in the blood of its citizens, this man who would have butchered
old and young of the contemptible canaille to silence the voice of
reason and of liberty that presumes to ring through France to-day? Where
do you think he hides himself? Why, here in Nantes."

Again there was uproar.

"What do you say? Impossible? Why, my friends, at this moment he is here
in this theatre--skulking up there in that box. He is too shy to
show himself--oh, a very modest gentleman. But there he is behind the
curtains. Will you not show yourself to your friends, M. de La Tour
d'Azyr, Monsieur le Marquis who considers elo