Out of the silence into which they had fallen anew broke now the cry of

“What else, then?  What else?”

“I will tell you,” he answered them.  “The wealth and strength of Brittany lies in Nantes — a bourgeois city, one of the most prosperous in this realm, rendered so by the energy of the bourgeoisie and the toil of the people.  It was in Nantes that this movement had its beginning, and as a result of it the King issued his order dissolving the States as now constituted — an order which those who base their power on Privilege and Abuse do not hesitate to thwart.  Let Nantes be informed of the precise situation, and let nothing be done here until Nantes shall have given us the lead.  She has the power — which we in Rennes have not — to make her will prevail, as we have seen already.  Let her exert that power once more, and until she does so do you keep the peace in Rennes.  Thus shall you triumph.  Thus shall the outrages that are being perpetrated under your eyes be fully and finally avenged.”

As abruptly as he had leapt upon the plinth did he now leap down from it.  He had finished.  He had said all — perhaps more than all — that could have been said by the dead friend with whose voice he spoke.  But it was not their will that he should thus extinguish himself.  The thunder of their acclamations rose deafeningly upon the air.  He had played upon their emotions — each in turn — as a skilful harpist plays upon the strings of his instrument.  And they were vibrant with the passions he had aroused, and the high note of hope on which he had brought his symphony to a close.

A dozen students caught him as he leapt down, and swung him to their shoulders, where again he came within view of all the acclaiming crowd.

The delicate Le Chapelier pressed alongside of him with flushed face and shining eyes.

“My lad,” he said to him, “you have kindled a fire to-day that will sweep the face of France in a blaze of liberty.”  And then to the students he issued a sharp command.  “To the Literary Chamber -at once.  We must concert measures upon the instant, a delegate must be dispatched to Nantes forthwith, to convey to our friends there the message of the people of Rennes.”

The crowd fell back, opening a lane through which the students bore the hero of the hour.  Waving his hands to them, he called upon them to disperse to their homes, and await there in patience what must follow very soon.

“You have endured for centuries with a fortitude that is a pattern to the world,” he flattered them.  “Endure a little longer yet.  The end, my friends, is well in sight at last.”

They carried him out of the square and up the Rue Royale to an old house, one of the few old houses surviving in that city that had risen from its ashes, where in an upper chamber lighted by diamond-shaped panes of yellow glass the Literary Chamber usually held its meetings.  Thither in his wake the members of that chamber came hurrying, summoned by the messages that Le Chapelier had issued during their progress.