As time went on the general depression of spirits became more and more accentuated. Even the popular tunes, "Il était une bergère," or "Sur le pont d'Avignon," failed to bring forth the usual lusty response. The people sat at table, finishing their meagre fare, whispering, planning and grumbling. It would have been such fun to march in a body to La Rodière as one had done four years ago, and there was always something to pick up in a place of that sort, something for the larder or the cellar, not to mention things that one could sell presently to the Jew pedlars from Paris. And this afternoon would have been a perfect opportunity for the expedition. It was cold, and snow had ceased to fall. If one only could have made a start at two o'clock, one would have had a couple of hours daylight for the affair. Now, as things were, with work at the factory kept up till seven o'clock, what could anyone do? It would be pitch dark at five, with no moon and possibly a heavy fall of snow; and what was more: if the whole thing was put off those aristos up at La Rodière would certainly be warned by then of what awaited them and would get themselves safely out of the way. That was the general drift of conversation round the trestle tables of the Restaurant Tison. Conty could hear them all talking. He glanced repeatedly up at the clock hoping to see the trim figure of Citizen Chauvelin appear in the doorway. Once the workers had gone back to the factory it would be too late to carry out the original plan, which had been approved of by Chauvelin, and Conty didn't relish the idea of having to shoulder the responsibility of what might or might not occur in that case. He would have preferred to receive final orders from a member of an influential committee, one who alone could issue orders over the head of the Chief Commissary.

It was then with a feeling of intense relief that precisely at twenty minutes past two he saw the sable-clad figure of Chauvelin working his way towards him through the crowd.

"Well? And what have you done?" Chauvelin queried curtly, and refused the chair which Conty had obsequiously offered him.

"You have heard the proclamation, Citizen?" Conty responded; "about work at the factory this afternoon?"

"I have. But I am asking you what you have done."

"Nothing, Citizen. I was waiting for you."

"You didn't carry out my orders?"

"I hadn't any, Citizen."

"Two days ago I gave you my commands to prepare the way for an armed raid on the château as soon as I was back in Choisy. Yesterday I sent you word that I would be back to-day. But I see no sign of a raid being orgainzed either by you or anyone else."

"The decree was only promulgated a couple of hours ago. All the able-bodied men and women will have to go back to work in a few minutes; there was nothing to be done."

"How do you mean? There was nothing to be done? What about all these people here? I can see at least a hundred that do not work in the factory, more than enough for what I want."

Conty gave a contemptuous shrug.

"The halt and the maimed," he retorted acidly; "the weaklings and the women. I thought every moment you would come, Citizen Chauvelin, and issue a counter decree giving the workers their usual Day of Rest. As you didn't come, I didn't know what to do."

"So you let them all get into the doldrums."

"What could I do, Citizen?" Conty reiterated sullenly. "I had no orders."

"You had no initiative, you mean? If you had you would have realized that if half the population of Choisy will in a moment or two go to work, the other half will still be here and ready for any mischief."

"Those bumpkins . . .!"

"Yes, louts and muckworms and cinderwenches. And let me tell you, Citizen Conty, that it is not for you to sneer at such excellent material, rather see that you utilize it as I directed you to do in the name of the government who know how to punish slackness as well as to reward energy."

Having said this, Chauvelin turned his back abruptly on the discomfited Conty and made for the door. Even as he did so an outside bell clanged out the summons for the workers to return to the factory. There was a general hubbub, chairs pushed aside and scraping against the stone floor, the tramp of feet all making for the door, voices shouting from one end of the room to the other. And right through the din, there came to Chauvelin's ears, at the very moment that he passed through the swing-doors, a sound that dominated ever other, just a prolonged merry, irritatingly inane laugh.

Muttering and grumbling, the workers filed out of the restaurant, and in straggling groups made their way across the Grand' Place. A few remained behind-a couple hundred or so: there was Hector the cobbler, who had lost a leg last year at Valmy, and Marius the wig-maker, who had only one hand where-with to ply his trade; and there was Jean, who suffered from epilepsy, and Anatole, who was half-witted, and Jacques, who was just a dwarf. There were men who were over fifty, and youths who were not yet fourteen, and, of course, there were the women. Conty looked about him, and in his mind agreed with what Citizen Chauvelin had said. Here was excellent material for a well-organized insurrection, and now that the responsibility was no longer his, he would know how to utilize it.

Hardly had the last able-bodied man gone out of the place than Citizen Conty had climbed on the top of the table, and begun his harangue by apostrophizing the musicians.

"What mean you, rascals," he cried lustily, "by scraping your fiddles to give us nothing but sentimental ballads fit only for weaklings to hear? Our fine men have gone to work for their country, and here you are trying to make us sing about shepherdesses and their cats. Mordieu! have you never heard of the air that every patriotic Frenchman should know, an air that puts fire into our blood, not water: 'Allons enfants de le patrie! Le jour de gloire est arrivé!'"

At first the people did not take much notice of Conty; the men had gone and there was nothing much to do but go back to one's own hovels and mope there till they returned. But when presently the musicians, in response to the speaker's challenge, took up the strains of the revolutionary song, they straightened out their backs, turned about the better to hear the impassioned oratory which now poured from Citizen Conty's lips.

"Citizens," he bellowed, while the musicians stopped playing so as not to drown his voice, "while our able-bodied men toil and moil to forge the arms wherewith the soldiers of France will smite the enemies of our beloved country, shall we who cannot join them in this noble work sit still and do nothing to rid France of those other enemies of hers who are far more insidious and far more dangerous to her safety than the English or the Dutch? You know to what enemies I refer! It is to those ci-devants, noble seigneurs, to those aristos who for years, nay, for centuries, battened on the misery and the toil of the people, who grew richer and fatter year by year, while you and your fathers and your grandfathers before you starved so that they might eat, bore misery and disease so that they might wallow in good food and sprawl in down beds."

Murmurs of approval greeted this somewhat confused metaphor, while the musicians at a sign from Conty once more struck up the martial strain:

"Contre nous de la tyrannie,

L'étendard sanglant est levé!"

Conty put up his hand. Once again the musicians paused and once again the orator raised his voice, certain now that he held the attention of his audience. But this time he did not bellow. He began quietly with hardly any emphasis, to explain to them just how in the past the rich had lived and the poor had suffered, how they had all worked hard in order to provide the aristos up in their château with all those luxuries of which they themselves had not even a conception. They, the women, had worked their fingers to the bone sewing and washing and scrubbing; the men had endured kicks from horses, bites from dogs, thrashings from their masters, had contracted sickness, lost a limb or an eye, all in the service of aristos who had never done anything to alleviate their woes.