Until then, she had known no fear save of her husband. But at that a
sense of the force and pressure of the crowd--as well as of the fierce
passions, straining about her, which a word might unloose--broke upon
her; and looking to the stern men on either side she fancied that she
read anxiety in their faces.
She glanced behind. Boot to boot, the Count's men came on, pressing
round her women and shielding them from the exuberance of the throng. In
their faces too she thought that she traced uneasiness. What wonder if
the scenes through which she had passed in Paris began to recur to her
mind, and shook nerves already overwrought?
She began to tremble. "Is there--danger?" she muttered, speaking in a
low voice to Bigot, who rode on her right hand. "Will they do anything?"
The Norman snorted. "Not while he is in the saddle," he said, nodding
towards his master, who rode a pace in front of them, his reins loose.
"There be some here know him!" Bigot continued, in his drawling tone.
"And more will know him if they break line. Have no fear, Madame, he
will bring you safe to the inn. Down with the Huguenots?" he continued,
turning from her and addressing a rogue who, holding his stirrup, was
shouting the cry till he was crimson. "Then why not away, and--"
"The King! The King's word and leave!" the man answered.
"Ay, tell us!" shrieked another, looking upward, while he waved his cap;
"have we the King's leave?"
"You'll bide his leave!" the Norman retorted, indicating the Count with
his thumb. "Or 'twill be up with you--on the three-legged horse!"
"But he comes from the King!" the man panted.
"To be sure. To be sure!"
"Then--"
"You'll bide his time! That's all!" Bigot answered, rather it seemed for
his own satisfaction than the other's enlightenment. "You'll all bide
it, you dogs!" he continued in his beard, as he cast his eye over the
weltering crowd. "Ha! so we are here, are we? And not too soon,
either."
He fell silent as they entered an open space, overlooked on one side by
the dark facade of the cathedral, on the other three sides by houses more
or less illumined. The rabble swept into this open space with them and
before them, filled much of it in an instant, and for a while eddied and
swirled this way and that, thrust onward by the worshippers who had
issued from the church and backwards by those who had been first in the
square, and had no mind to be hustled out of hearing. A stranger,
confused by the sea of excited faces, and deafened by the clamour of
"Vive le Roi!" "Vive Anjou!" mingled with cries against the Huguenots,
might have fancied that the whole city was arrayed before him. But he
would have been wide of the mark. The scum, indeed--and a dangerous
scum--frothed and foamed and spat under Tavannes' bridle-hand; and here
and there among them, but not of them, the dark-robed figure of a priest
moved to and fro; or a Benedictine, or some smooth-faced acolyte egged on
to the work he dared not do. But the decent burghers were not there.
They lay bolted in their houses; while the magistrates, with little heart
to do aught except bow to the mob--or other their masters for the time
being--shook in their council chamber.