antry, had abstained from illuminating his mansion. The shutters on the ground floor were closed, and it seemed as if there were no light within.
But this discretion did not disarm the mob. They hurled themselves furiously upon the accursed house. Prowlers and vagrants, of which the greater part of the procession now consisted, especially excel in demolition. The barred shutters were torn from the windows, and the windows themselves shattered to splinters.
"To the death! To the death!" shrieked the rioters.
Confiding the flag to his faithful Vingerhout, Paridael came between them, and tried to prevent them from breaking into the house, for suddenly all his thoughts had returned to the wife of the unpopular ship-owner, his Cousin Gina. Let them tear Béjard to pieces or hang him! Laurent would not have cared at all. Let them not leave one stone of the house upon another! Laurent would have willingly helped the destroyers. But he would give his last drop of blood to spare Madame Béjard one fright or emotion!
Ah! luckless fellow, why had he had not foreseen this danger sooner?
He called Vingerhout to his aid. But they were swept aside. It was impossible to dam the furious mass. There was nothing to do but follow them, or, better, precede them into the house and bring help to the young woman. Laurent jumped through a window into the salon. Already a swarm of infuriated men were struggling in there like epileptics; shattering the furniture and bibelots, tearing down curtains, cutting holes into cushions, pulling pictures from the wall, reducing tapestries and hangings to lint, throwing the
