The
carriage passed on, but the noise and struggle continued, and Madame
Darpent was soon intensely anxious about her son.
It seemed that Clement had carried his warnings, and that four or
five of the councillors had taken care to be beyond the walls of
Paris; among them his own father, the Councillor Darpent, who was a
prudent man, and thought it best to be on the right side. The
President Broussel, a good-humoured, simple, hearty old man, was not
quite well, and though he thanked his young friend, he would not
believe any such harm was intended against him as to make him derange
his course of medicine.
Thus, when Comminges marched into the house to arrest him, he was
sitting at dinner, eating his bouillon, in dressing-gown and
slippers. His daughter cried out that he was not fit to leave the
house. At the same time, an old maid-servant put her head out at a
window, screaming that her master was going to be carried off.
He was much beloved, and a host of people ran together, trying to
break the carriage and cut the traces. Comminges, seeing that no
time was to be lost, forced the poor old lawyer down to the carriage
just as he was, in his dressing-gown and slippers, and drove off.
But the mob thickened every moment, in spite of the guards, and a
very few yards beyond where they had taken refuge at Madame
Darpent's, a large wooden bench had been thrown across the street,
and the uproar redoubled round it--the yells, shrieks, and cries
ringing all down the road.
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