A terrible scene would have taken place between the father and son, had they not been interrupted by a domestic who rushed into the room, and excitedly cried: 

“The gendarmes! here are the gendarmes!”

At this news the old marquis started up, and seemed to forget his gout, which had yielded to more violent emotions.

“Gendarmes!” he cried, “in my house at Clameran!  They shall pay dear for their insolence!  You will help me, will you not, my men?”

“Yes, yes,” answered the servants.  “Down with the gendarmes! down with them!”

Fortunately Louis, during all this excitement, preserved his presence of mind.

“To resist would be folly,” he said.  “Even if we repulsed the gendarmes to-night, they would return to-morrow with reinforcements.”

“Louis is right,” said the marquis, bitterly.  “Might is right, as they said in ’93.  The gendarmes are all powerful.  Do they not even have the impertinence to come up to me while I am hunting, and ask to see my shooting-license?—­I, a Clameran, show a license!”

“Where are they?” asked Louis of the servants.

“At the outer gate,” answered La Verdure, one of the grooms.  “Does not monsieur hear the noise they are making with their sabres?”

“Then Gaston must escape over the garden wall.”

“It is guarded, monsieur,” said La Verdure, “and the little gate in the park besides.  There seems to be a regiment of them.  They are even stationed along the park walls.”

This was only too true.  The rumor of Lazet’s death had spread like wildfire throughout the town of Tarascon, and everybody was in a state of excitement.  Not only mounted gendarmes, but a platoon of hussars from the garrison, had been sent in pursuit of the murderer.

At least twenty young men of Tarascon were volunteer guides to the armed force.

“Then,” said the marquis, “we are surrounded?”

“Not a single chance for escape,” groaned St. Jean.

“We shall see about that, Jarnibleu!” cried the marquis.  “Ah, we are not the strongest, but we can be the most adroit.  Attention!  Louis, my son, you and La Verdure go down to the stable, and mount the fastest horses; then as quietly as possible station yourselves, you, Louis, at the park gate, and you, La Verdure, at the outer gate.  Upon the signal I shall give you by firing a pistol, let every door be instantly opened, while Louis and Verdure dash through the gates, and make the gendarmes pursue them.”

“I will make them fly,” said La Verdure.

“Listen.  During this time, Gaston, aided by St. Jean, will scale the park wall, and hasten along the river to the cabin of Pilorel, the fisherman.  He is an old sailor of the republic, and devoted to our house.  He will take Gaston in his boat; and, when they are once on the Rhone, there is nothing to be feared save the wrath of God.  Now go, all of you:  fly!”

Left alone with his son, the old man slipped the jewelry into a silk purse, and, handing them once more to Gaston, said, as he stretched out his arms toward him: