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“Follow you? How come?” asked the chief of the volunteers.

“We will, of course, conduct the citizeness to the station at the Hôtel de Ville where we are keeping guard, and we will take down any relevant information about her there.”

“Not on your life!” said the chief of the original troop. “She’s ours and we intend to hang on to her.”

“Ah, citizens, we are starting to get annoyed,” said Lorin.

“Get annoyed all you like; it’s all the same to us. We’re the real soldiers of the Republic. While you’re out patrolling the streets of Paris, we’ll be spilling our blood at the front.”

“See that you don’t spill it on the way, citizens. That’s exactly what will happen if you don’t show a bit more respect.”

“Respect is an aristocratic virtue. We are the sans culottes,5 don’t you know!” retorted the volunteers.

“Bully for you!” Lorin shot back. “But let’s not discuss such things in front of the lady. She may well be English for all we know. No offense, my lovely night owl,” he added, turning gallantly toward the stranger.

A poet has said, and we can only repeat

After him, humble echo at best:

“I’ the world’s volume

Our Britain seems as of it, but not in it:

In a great pool, a swan’s nest.”

“Aha! You’ve given yourself away there!” cried the chief of the volunteers. “Admit you’re one of Pitt’s men,6 in the payroll of England, a …”

“Do be quiet!” said Lorin. “Poetry is not your forte, my friend. I see I’ll have to address you in prose. Listen, we may be nice polite National Guards, but we’re still children of Paris: when someone really gets our goat, we come down hard.”

“Madame,” said Maurice. “You see what’s happening and you can guess what’s going to happen; in five minutes, ten or twelve men are going to cut each other’s throats over you. The cause that those who wish to defend you have embraced—is it worth the blood that will be shed?”

“Monsieur,” replied the mystery woman, bringing her hands together. “There is only one thing I can say, one single thing: if you allow me to be arrested, the consequences for me and others would be so catastrophic, I’d rather you ran my heart through with that weapon in your hand right now and threw my body into the Seine than abandon me.”

“Say no more, madame,” said Maurice. “I’ll take full responsibility.” And letting go the hands of the beautiful stranger, which he had clutched, he addressed the National Guards: “Citizens, as your officer, as a patriot, and as a Frenchman, I order you to protect this woman. And you, Lorin, if these guttersnipes utter a word, use your bayonet!”

“Ready! Aim!” cried Lorin.

“Oh God, oh God!” cried the stranger, swaddling her head in her hood and slumping onto a stone post for support. “God protect him.”

The volunteers stumbled around trying to get into a defensive position. One of them even fired a shot from his pistol, and the bullet whistled straight through Maurice’s hat.

“Cross bayonets,” said Lorin. “Attack!”

In the shadows there followed a brief scuffle and momentary confusion during which one or two blasts from firearms rang out, followed by imprecations, cries, blasphemous shouts. Nobody came to help, for as we said at the beginning, the rumor of a massacre being about to take place had made the rounds, a massacre was therefore silently expected, and so it seemed the massacre had begun. Only two or three windows opened—only to promptly shut again.

Less numerous and less well armed, the volunteers were instantly out of the fight. Two of them were seriously injured, four others stood pinned against the wall with bayonets aimed at their chests.

“Right,” said Lorin. “I hope you’ll be as gentle as lambs from here on. As for you, citizen Maurice, I order you to take this woman to the station at the Hôtel de Ville. You understand that you will be held responsible.”

“Yes,” said Maurice, adding, under his breath, “What’s the password?”

“Oh, damn!” said Lorin, scratching his ear. “The password … is … um.”

“Aren’t you worried