stretched from the front of the barracks, nearly into the square; but
he also saw that the inhabitants of the town were standing clustering
at all the doors, and that men were crowding towards the square from the
different inlets. Four or five of the more respectable inhabitants had
also joined the group in the gateway, from the hands of one of whom the
postillion quietly took a stout ash stick. The corporal, however, was
not a coward, and he saw that, if he intended to return with Peter
Berrier, he should not delay his work with any further parley, so he
took his pistol from his belt and cocked it, and, stepping quite close
to Berrier, said,

"Come men--forward, and bring him off; one man to each shoulder," and
he himself seized hold of the breast of Peter's coat with his left hand
and pulled him forward a step or two.

Peter was a little afraid of the pistol, but still he resisted manfully:
from the corporal's position, Cathelineau was unable to reach with his
stick the arm which had laid hold of Berrier, but it descended heavily
on the first soldier, who came to the corporal's assistance. The blow
fell directly across the man's wrist, and his arm dropt powerless to his
side. The corporal immediately released his hold of Peter's coat, and
turning on Cathelineau raised his pistol and fired; the shot missed the
postillion, but it struck M. Debedin, the keeper of the auberge, and
wounded him severely in the jaw. He was taken at once into the house,
and the report was instantaneously spread through the town, that M.
Debedin had been shot dead by the soldiery.

The ash stick of the postillion was again raised, and this time the
corporal's head was the sufferer; the man's shako protected his skull,
which, if uncovered, would have probably been fractured; but he was