He ran to the barracks, and in less than half an hour five hundred foot-soldiers and three hundred of the Montaignac chasseurs were under arms.

With these forces at his disposal it would have been easy enough to suppress this movement without the least bloodshed.  It was only necessary to close the gates of the city.  It was not with fowling-pieces and clubs that these poor peasants could force an entrance into a fortified town.

But such moderation did not suit a man of the duke’s violent temperament, a man who was ever longing for struggle and excitement, a man whose ambition prompted him to display his zeal.

He had ordered the gate of the citadel to be left open, and had concealed some of his soldiers behind the parapets of the outer fortifications.

He then stationed himself where he could command a view of the approach to the citadel, and deliberately chose his moment for giving the signal to fire.

Still, a strange thing happened.  Of four hundred shots, fired into a dense crowd of fifteen hundred men, only three had hit the mark.

More humane than their chief, nearly all the soldiers had fired in the air.

But the duke had not time to investigate this strange occurrence now.  He leaped into the saddle, and placing himself at the head of about five hundred men, cavalry and infantry, he started in pursuit of the fugitives.

The peasants had the advantage of their pursuers by about twenty minutes.

Poor simple creatures!

They might easily have made their escape.  They had only to disperse, to scatter; but, unfortunately, the thought never once occurred to the majority of them.  A few ran across the fields and gained their homes in safety; the others, frantic and despairing, overcome by the strange vertigo that seizes the bravest in moments of panic, fled like a flock of frightened sheep.

Fear lent them wings, for did they not hear each moment shots fired at the laggards?

But there was one man, who, at each of these detonations, received, as it were, his death-wound—­this man was Lacheneur.

He had reached the Croix d’Arcy just as the firing at Montaignac began.  He listened and waited.  No discharge of musketry replied to the first fusillade.  There might have been butchery, but combat, no.

Lacheneur understood it all; and he wished that every ball had pierced his own heart.

He put spurs to his horse and galloped to the crossroads.  The place was deserted.  At the entrance of one of the roads stood the cabriolet which had brought M. d’Escorval and the abbe.

At last M. Lacheneur saw the fugitives approaching in the distance.  He dashed forward, to meet them, trying by mingled curses and insults to stay their flight.

“Cowards!” he vociferated, “traitors!  You flee—­and you are ten against one!  Where are you going?  To your own homes.  Fools! you will find the gendarmes there only awaiting your coming to conduct you to the scaffold.  Is it not better to die with your weapons in your hands?  Come—­right about.  Follow me!  We may still conquer.  Reinforcements are at hand; two thousand men are following me!”