"In that case, three cheers again for the Duke of Orleans!" said the farmer. "Friends the Duke of Orleans is on our side--three cheers for the duke!"
He pointed upwards and the prince showed himself for an instant while he bowed three times to the shouting; short as was the appearance it lifted enthusiasm to the utmost.
"Break open the gunsmith's," shouted a voice in the turbulence.
"Let us go to the Invalid Soldiers Hospital," added some old veterans. "General Sombreuil has twenty thousand muskets there."
"And to the City Hall!" exclaimed others: "Flesselles, Provost of the Traders, has the keys for the town guards' armory and he must give them up."
"To the Hall!" bellowed a fraction of the assemblage.
All flowed away in one or the other of the three directions called out.
During this time the dragoons had rallied around Baron Bezenval and Prince Lambesq on Louis XV. Square.
Billet and Pitou were unaware of this as they followed none of the parties and were left pretty well alone on Palais Royale Square.
"Well, where are we off to, dear Master Billet?" inquired Ange Pitou.
"I should like to follow the crowd," replied the other: "not to the gunmakers', as I have a first-rate gun, but to the City Hall or the military Asylum. Still, as we came to town not to fight, but to learn Doctor Gilbert's address. I think we ought to go to Louis-the-Great's College, where his son is. When I shall have got through with the doctor, we can jump back into the chafing-dish."
"This course seems logical to me," observed the young peasant.
"So take some weapon, gun or sword, from those beer drinkers lying there," said the farmer, pointing to half-a-dozen dragoons on the pave, "and let us go to the college."
"But these weapons are not mine, but the King's," objected Pitou.
"They are the people's," corrected Billet, whereupon the other who knew the speaker was incapable of wronging a man to the extent of a mustard-seed, went up to the nearest corpse with multiplied caution, and making sure he was lifeless, he took his musket, cartridge-box and sabre.
He wanted to take his hamlet but had his doubts about the defensive armor being "confisticatable" like the offensive arms; while deliberating he listened towards Vendome Square.