will fall like leaves in autumn, if we don't prevent it."

"Have they it ready?" said Foret.

"Always," said the other, "they have nothing to do but wheel it into the
street; and they are at it, you hear the noise of the wheels this
moment. We must bear one discharge from it, and the next, if there be
a second, shall fall upon the soldiers."

Others, beside Cathelineau, recognized the sound of the moving
wheels--and, the cannon, the cannon, they will fire the cannon on us,"
was heard from side to side among the crowd; but none attempted to run,
not one of the whole mass attempted to fly, and when the barrack gates
flew open, and the deadly mouth of the huge instrument was close upon
them, they rushed upon it, determined at any rate, to preserve their
houses, their wives, and their children from the awful destruction of
a prolonged firing.

"They must have one shot at us," said a man in a trembling whisper to
his neighbour. "God send it were over!" replied the other, as the gates
of the barrack-yard were thrown back.

The greater number of the soldiers and the two officers who had returned
with them, made good their retreat into the barracks, under the fire of
their comrades, who had been left there. Some three or four had been
pulled and hustled into the crowd, and their arms were quickly taken
from them and they were sent back to the auberge as prisoners. The
colonel, as soon as he found himself in his own quarters, gave immediate
orders that the gun should be wheeled round to the barrack-yard gate,
which had hitherto been kept closed, and that the moment the gates could