In A Tale of Two Cities, Chapter 16, Book 2, what is the rumor in the village where the marquis was killed?

From the text:

A rumour just lived in the village—had a faint and bare existence there, as its people had—that when the knife struck home, the faces changed, from faces of pride to faces of anger and pain; also, that when that dangling figure was hauled up forty feet above the fountain, they changed again, and bore a cruel look of being avenged, which they would henceforth bear for ever.