a few minutes.

Whilst he thus defended the entrance, Gabriel shouted to Father
d'Aigrigny: "Fly, father! fly through the vestry! the other doors are
fastened."

The Jesuit, overpowered by fatigue, covered with contusions, bathed in
cold sweat, feeling his strength altogether fail, and too soon fancying
himself in safety, had sunk, half fainting, into a chair. At the voice of
Gabriel, he rose with difficulty, and, with a trembling step, endeavored
to reach the choir, separated from the rest of the church by an iron
railing.

"Quick, father!" added Gabriel, in alarm, using every effort to maintain
the door, which was now vigorously assailed. "Make haste! In a few
minutes it will be too late. All alone!" continued the missionary, in
despair, "alone, to arrest the progress of these madmen!"

He was indeed alone. At the first outbreak of the attack, three or four
sacristans and other members of the establishment were in the church;
but, struck with terror, and remembering the sack of the archbishop's
palace, and of Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois, they had immediately taken
flight. Some of them had concealed themselves in the organ-loft and
others fled into the vestry, the doors of which they locked after them,
thus cutting off the retreat of Gabriel and Father d'Aigrigny. The
latter, bent double by pain, yet roused by the missionary's portentive
warning, helping himself on by means of the chairs he met with on his
passage, made vain efforts to reach the choir railing. After advancing a
few steps, vanquished by his suffering, he staggered and fell upon the
pavement, deprived of sense and motion. At the same moment, Gabriel, in
spite of the incredible energy with which the desire to save Father
d'Aigrigny had inspired him, felt the door giving way beneath the
formidable pressure from without.

Turning his head, to see if the Jesuit had at least quitted the church,
Gabriel, to his great alarm, perceived that he was lying motionless at a
few steps from the choir. To abandon the half-broken door, to run to
Father d'Aigrigny, to lift him in his arms, and drag him within the
railing of the choir, was for the young priest an action rapid as
thought; for he closed the gate of the choir just at the instant that the
quarryman and his band, having finished breaking down the door, rushed in
a body into the church.

Standing in front of the choir, with his arms crossed upon his breast,
Gabriel waited calmly and intrepidly for this mob,