blows, his wrist torn and bleeding.

The stairs, the landing, the courtyard, were full of soldiers with fixed
bayonets and grounded arms. The Questor spoke to them. "Your
Representatives are being arrested, you have not received your arms to
break the laws!" A sergeant was wearing a brand-new cross. "Have you been
given the cross for this?" The sergeant answered, "We only know one
master." "I note your number," continued M. Baze. "You are a dishonored
regiment." The soldiers listened with a stolid air, and seemed still
asleep. Commissary Primorin said to them, "Do not answer, this has
nothing to do with you." They led the Questor across the courtyard to the
guard-house at the Porte Noire.

This was the name which was given to a little door contrived under the
vault opposite the treasury of the Assembly, and which opened upon the
Rue de Bourgogne, facing the Rue de Lille.

Several sentries were placed at the door of the guard-house, and at the
top of the flight of steps which led thither, M. Baze being left there in
charge of three _sergents de ville_. Several soldiers, without their
weapons, and in their shirt-sleeves, came in and out. The Questor
appealed to them in the name of military honor. "Do not answer," said the
_sergent de ville_ to the soldiers.

M. Baze's two little girls had followed him with terrified eyes, and when
they lost sight of him the youngest burst into tears. "Sister," said the
elder, who was seven years old, "let us say our prayers," and the two
children, clasping their hands, knelt down.

Commissary Primorin, with his swarm of agents, burst into the Questor's