was that the troops, before marching out, should lay down their arms.
The messenger also intimated that if the offer he had brought were not
quickly accepted--say within two hours--the time for capitulation would
have gone by, and that he would not be answerable for what the people
might then do in their fury. The general accepted the conditions as
amended, and the envoy disappeared.

When the troops heard of the agreement, that they should be disarmed
before being allowed to leave the town, their first impulse was to refuse
to lay down their weapons before a rabble which had run away from a few
musket shots; but the general succeeded in soothing their sense of
humiliation and winning their consent by representing to them that there
could be nothing dishonourable in an action which prevented the children
of a common fatherland from shedding each other's blood.

The gendarmerie, according to one article of the treaty, were to close in
at, the rear of the evacuating column; and thus hinder the populace from
molesting the troops of which it was composed. This was the only
concession obtained in return for the abandoned arms, and the farce in
question was already drawn up in field order, apparently waiting to
escort the troops out of the city.

At four o'clock P.M. the troops got ready, each company stacking its arms
in the courtyard before: marching out; but hardly had forty or fifty men
passed the gates than fire was opened on them at such close range that
half of them were killed or disabled at the first volley. Upon this,
those who were still within the walls closed the courtyard gates, thus
cutting off all chance of retreat from their comrades. In the event;
however, it turned out that several of the latter contrived to escape
with their lives and that they lost nothing through being prevented from