M. de la Gueritude had never in his life heard anything of this
sort, and thought he had to deal with a madman, as one might easily
suppose, and, more for defence than attack, he raised his big stick.
My good tutor, out of his senses, threw a bottle at the head of the
contractor, who fell headlong on the floor, howling, "He has killed
me!" And as he was swimming in red wine he really looked as though
murdered. Both the flunkeys wanted to throw themselves on the
murderer, and one of them, a burly fellow, tried to grasp him, when
M. Coignard gave the fellow such a butt that he rolled in the stream
beside the financier.

Unluckily he rose quickly, and, arming himself with a still burning
torch, jumped into the passage, where bad luck awaited him. My good
master was no longer there; he had taken to his heels. But M.
d'Anquetil was still there with Catherine, and he it was who
received the burning torch on his forehead, an outrage he could not
stand. He drew his sword, and drove it to the hilt in the unlucky
knave's stomach, teaching him, at his own expense, how fatal it may
be to attack a gentleman. Now M. Coignard had not got twenty yards
away from the house when the other lackey, a tall fellow, with the
limbs of a daddy-longlegs, ran after him, shouting for the guard.

"Stop him! Stop him!" The footman ran faster than the abbe, and we
could see him, at the corner of the Rue Saint Guillaume, extending
his arms to catch M. Coignard by the collar of his gown. But my dear
tutor, who had more than one trick, veering abruptly, got behind the
fellow, tripped him up, and sent him on to a stone post, where he
got his head broken. It was done before M. d'Anquetil and I, running
to the abbe's assistance, could reach him. We could not leave M.