I became suddenly aware that here I was not my own master.  My tongue clave to the root of my mouth; I could not say a word.  Then I myself was turned round, and softly, firmly, irresistibly pushed out of the gate.  My mother, who clung to me, added a little, no doubt, to the force against me, whatever it was, for she was frightened, and opposed herself to any endeavour on my part to regain freedom of movement; but all that her feeble force could do against mine must have been little.  Several other men around me seemed to be moved as I was.  M. Barbou, for one, made a still more decided effort to turn back, for, being a bachelor, he had no one to restrain him.  Him I saw turned round as you would turn a roulette.  He was thrown against my wife in his tempestuous course, and but that she was so light and elastic in her tread, gliding out straight and softly like one of the saints, I think he must have thrown her down.  And at that moment, silent as we all were, his ’Pardon, Madame, mille pardons, Madame,’ and his tone of horror at his own indiscretion, seemed to come to me like a voice out of another life.  Partially roused before by the sudden impulse of resistance I have described, I was yet more roused now.  I turned round, disengaging myself from my mother.  ‘Where are we going? why are we thus cast forth?  My friends, help!’ I cried.  I looked round upon the others, who, as I have said, had also awakened to a possibility of resistance.  M. de Bois-Sombre, without a word, came and placed himself by my side; others started from the crowd.  We turned to resist this mysterious impulse which had sent us forth.  The crowd surged round us in the uncertain light.

Just then there was a dull soft sound, once, twice, thrice repeated.  We rushed forward, but too late.  The gates were closed upon us.  The two folds of the great Porte St. Lambert, and the little postern for foot-passengers, all at once, not hurriedly, as from any fear of us, but slowly, softly, rolled on their hinges and shut—­in our faces.  I rushed forward with all my force and flung myself upon the gate.  To what use? it was so closed as no mortal could open it.  They told me after, for I was not aware at the moment, that I burst forth with cries and exclamations, bidding them ‘Open, open in the name of God!’ I was not aware of what I said, but it seemed to me that I heard a voice of which nobody said anything to me, so that it would seem to have been unheard by the others, saying with a faint sound as of a trumpet, ’Closed—­in the name of God.’  It might be only an echo, faintly brought back to me, of the words I had myself said.

There was another change, however, of which no one could have any doubt.  When I turned round from these closed doors, though the moment before the darkness was such that we could not see the gates closing, I found the sun shining gloriously round us, and all my fellow-citizens turning with one impulse, with a sudden cry of joy, to hail the full day.