Mlle. Fouchette Part 22

The latter came from the police agents, now half buried in the straw.

A second squadron of cavalry, Garde de Paris, drawn up near by, witnessed this incident and smiled. These little pleasantries amuse all good Parisians.

Safety now lay in separation. Jean kept on towards the Rue Royale; his friends broke off, scattering towards the Rue de Rivoli.

"Que diable!" he muttered.

He stopped and looked hastily about him.

"Well, devil take her anyhow,--she's gone. And I'm here."

He saw himself, with many others out of the line of blocked vehicles, hemmed in by agents, Gardes de Paris, and cuira.s.siers to the right and left, now driven into the Rue Royale as stray animals into a pound.

Double lines of police agents supported by infantry and cavalry held both ends of this short street; here, where it opened into the Place de la Concorde and there where it led at the Madeleine into the grand boulevards.

The roar of the mob came down upon him from the Madeleine, where the rioters had forced the defensive line from time to time only to be driven back by the fists and feet of the police agents and with the flat of the cavalry sabre.

The authorities knew their ground. The Rue Royale was the key to the military position.

But in the attempt to clear the Place de la Concorde the nearest fugitives were thrust into the Rue Royale and driven by horse and foot towards the Madeleine, where they were mercilessly kicked outside the lines to shift for themselves, an unwilling part of a frenzied mob.

"I'm a rat in a trap here," growled the young man, having been literally thrown through the lower cordon by two stalwart agents.

The shopkeepers had put up their heavy shutters. The grilles were closed. People looked down from window and balcony upon a street sealed as tight as wax.

Having witnessed the infantry reserves ambushed behind the Ministry of Marine filling their magazines, and being confronted by a fresh emeute above, Jean Marot began to feel queer for the first time of a day of brawls.

He recalled the historical fact that here in this narrow street a thousand people were slain in a panic on the occasion of the celebration of the marriage of Marie Antoinette.

A horseman with drawn sabre rode at him and ordered him to move on more quickly.

"But where to, Monsieur le Caporal?"

"Anywhere, mon enfant! Out of this, now! Circulate!"

"But----"

"There is no 'but!' What business have you here? You are not a Deputy!" The man urged him with his sabre.

"Hold, Monsieur le Caporal! Has, then, a citizen of Paris no longer any right to go home without insult from the uniform?"

"Where do you live, monsieur?"

"Just around the corner in the Faubourg St. Honore," replied the young man.

"Ah!" growled the cavalryman, doubtfully, "and there is another route."

All of this time the soldier's horse, trained by much service of this sort during the preceding year, was pushing Jean along of his own accord,--now with his breast, now with his impatient nose,--to the considerable sacrifice of that young man's dignity. The latter edged up to the wall, but the horse followed him, shoving him along gently but firmly under a loose rein.

Jean flattened himself against a doorway to escape the pressure. But the horse paused also and leaned against him.

"Oh, say, then!"

"h.e.l.lo! Here they come again!" exclaimed the corporal, reining in his horse, with his eyes bent towards the Madeleine.

At this juncture the door was suddenly opened and Jean, who was fast having the breath squeezed out of him, fell inside.

The door was as suddenly closed again and barred.

The cavalryman, who had not seen this movement, glanced around on either side, behind, then beneath his horse, finally up in the sky, and shrugged his shoulders and rode on along the walk.

"Oho, Monsieur Jean!" roared a friendly voice as the young man caught his breath; "trying to break into my house, eh? By my saint, young man, you were in a mighty tight place! Oh, this dreadful day! No business at all, and----"

"Business!" gasped Jean,--"business, man! Never had a more busy day in my life!"

"You? Yes! it is such wild young blades as you and that serious-looking Lerouge who raise all the row in Paris.--I say, monsieur," broke off the garrulous old restaurateur, and, running to the window behind the bar, "they're putting the sand!"

Men with barrows from the Ministry of Marine were hastily strewing the smooth asphalt with sand. It meant cavalry operations.

"But, Monsieur Jean, where's your double? Where's the other Marot to-day?"

Jean's face clouded. He did not reply.

"I never saw two men look so much alike," continued the restaurateur.

"So the medics all say, and that I do all the deviltry and Henri gets sent to depot for it." He had called for something to eat, and looked up from the distant table in continuation,--

"Lerouge has turned out to be the most rabid Dreyfusarde. We met in the fun to-day----"

"Fun!"

"There certainly was fun for a while. George Villeroy, when I last saw him, was being chased to the Rue de Rivoli. Hope he gets back this evening at Le Pet.i.t Rouge."

"Le Pet.i.t Rouge! Faugh! Nest of red republicans, royalists----"

"No royalists----"

"Anarchists----"

"Yes, I'll admit that----"

"And b.l.o.o.d.y bones----"

"b.l.o.o.d.y noses to-day, monsieur."

"And this Lerouge and you?"

"Yes, this is George's night to carve," said Jean, changing the subject back to surgery.