was accompanying this regiment to the army of Dumouriez, then in
Belgium.

Now it so happened that this Commissioner had meditated making a
descent upon the Chateau on his own account, and he was not minded
that any peasantry should forestall or baulk him in the business
which he proposed to carry out there. Accordingly, he issued certain
orders to the commandant, from which it resulted that a company, two
hundred strong, was immediately despatched to Bellecour, to either
defend or rescue it from the mob, and thereafter to await the arrival
of the Commissioner himself.

This was the company that had reached Bellecour in the eleventh hour,
to claim the attention of the assailants. But the peasants, as we
have seen, were by no means disposed to submit to interference, and
this they signified by the menacing front they showed the military,
abandoning their attack upon the Chateau until they should be clear
concerning the intentions of the newcomers. Of these intentions the
Captain did not leave them long in doubt. A brisk word of command
brought his men into a bristling line of attack, which in itself
should have proved sufficient to ensure the peasantry's respect.

"Citizens" cried the officer, stepping forward, "in the name of the
French Republic I charge you to withdraw and to leave us unhampered
in the business we are here to discharge."

"Citizen-captain,"answered the giant Souvestre, constituting himself
the spokesman of his fellows, "we demand to know by what right you
interfere with honest patriots of France in the act of ridding it
of some of the aristocratic vermin that yet lingers on its soil?"