"Mesdames," he cried rudely, "this screeching will profit us nothing.
Even if we must die, let us die becomingly, not shrieking like
butchered geese."

A dozen men raised their voices angrily against him in defence of
the women he had slighted. But he waved them impatiently away.

"Is this an hour in which to fall a-quarrelling among ourselves?"
he exclaimed. "Or do you think it one in which a man can stop to
choose his words? Sang-dieu! That screaming is a more serious
matter than at first may seem. If these rebellious dogs should
chance to hear it, it will be but so much encouragement to them.
A fearless front, a cold contempt, are weapons unrivalled if you
would prevail against these mutinous cravens."

But his guests were insistent that something more than fearless
fronts and cold contempts should be set up as barriers between
themselves and the advancing peasantry. And in the end Bellecour
impatiently quitted the room to give orders for the barricading of
the gates and the defending of the Chateau, leaving behind him in
the salon the very wildest of confusions.

>From the windows the peasantry could now be seen, by the light of
their torches, marching up the long avenue that fronted the Chateau,
and headed by a single drum on which the bearer did no more than
beat the step. They were a fierce, unkempt band, rudely armed -
some with scythes, some with sickles, some with hedge-knives, and
some with hangers; whilst here and there was one who carried a gun,
and perhaps a bayonet as well. Nor were there men only in the