the window.

"It's the cuirassiers, Monsieur Jean! Ah! if it came to blows they'd
pot 'em like rabbits here! You're out of it just in time."

So closely was the squadron of cuirassiers wedged in the street that
Jean could have put his hand upon the jack-boots of the nearest
soldier. There had been a fresh break in the Madeleine guard, and this
was the reserve. They slowly pricked their resistless way, and one by
one the exhausted agents slipped between them to the rear. Some of the
latter dragged prisoners, some supported bruised and bleeding victims.
Some persons had been trampled or beaten into insensibility, and these
were being carried towards the Place de la Concorde. Among them were
women. There are always women in the Paris mob.

And this particular mob was a mere political "manifestation." That was
all. It was the 25th of October, 1898, and the day on which the French
Parliament met. So the Parisian patriots lined the route to the Palais
Bourbon and "manifested" their devotion to liberty French fashion, by
clubbing everybody who disagreed with them.

"Well!" said Jean, "they have pushed beyond St. Honore. I can get home
now."

"Not yet, monsieur. Do not go yet. It is still dangerous. A bottle of
old Barsac with me."

* * * * *

Night had fallen. Jean Marot was cautiously let out of a side door.

The Ministry had also fallen.

Hoarse-lunged venders of the evening papers announced the fact in
continuous cries. Travel had been resumed in the Rue Royale. Here and
there the shops began to take in their shutters and resume business.
Timid shopkeepers came out on the walk and discussed the situation
with each other.

The ministerial journals sold by wholesale. The angry manifestants
burned them in the streets. Which rendered the camelots more insistent
and obnoxious with fresh bundles to be sold and destroyed in the same
way.

Jean Marot, refreshed by rest and food, lingered a moment at Rue St.
Honore, uncertain whether to return to his rooms or join a mob of
patriots howling the Marseillaise in front of the Cafe de Londres.

"Enough," he finally concluded, and turned up towards the Rue Boissy
d'Anglais.

There were evidences of a fierce struggle in the narrow but
aristocratic faubourg. Usually a blaze of light at this hour, it was
closed from street to street and practically deserted. Scared
milliners and dress-makers and fashionable jewellers peered out from
upper wind