Of the waiter who ministered to his humble wants with soup and bouilli, and a measure of vin gris, Andre-Louis enquired into the state of public feeling in the city.  The waiter, a staunch supporter of the privileged orders, admitted regretfully that an uneasiness prevailed.  Much would depend upon what happened at Rennes.  If it was true that the King had dissolved the States of Brittany, then all should be well, and the malcontents would have no pretext for further disturbances.  There had been trouble and to spare in Nantes already.  They wanted no repetition of it.  All manner of rumours were abroad, and since early morning there had been crowds besieging the portals of the Chamber of Commerce for definite news.  But definite news was yet to come.  It was not even known for a fact that His Majesty actually had dissolved the States.

It was striking two, the busiest hour of the day upon the Bourse, when Andre-Louis reached the Place du Commerce.  The square, dominated by the imposing classical building of the Exchange, was so crowded that he was compelled almost to fight his way through to the steps of the magnificent Ionic porch.  A word would have sufficed to have opened a way for him at once.  But guile moved him to keep silent.  He would come upon that waiting multitude as a thunderclap, precisely as yesterday he had come upon the mob at Rennes.  He would lose nothing of the surprise effect of his entrance.

The precincts of that house of commerce were jealously kept by a line of ushers armed with staves, a guard as hurriedly assembled by the merchants as it was evidently necessary.  One of these now effectively barred the young lawyer’s passage as he attempted to mount the steps.

Andre-Louis announced himself in a whisper.

The stave was instantly raised from the horizontal, and he passed and went up the steps in the wake of the usher.  At the top, on the threshold of the chamber, he paused, and stayed his guide.

“I will wait here,” he announced.  “Bring the president to me.”

“Your name, monsieur?”

Almost had Andre-Louis answered him when he remembered Le Chapelier’s warning of the danger with which his mission was fraught, and Le Chapelier’s parting admonition to conceal his identity.

“My name is unknown to him; it matters nothing; I am the mouthpiece of a people, no more.  Go.”

The usher went, and in the shadow of that lofty, pillared portico Andre-Louis waited, his eyes straying out ever and anon to survey that spread of upturned faces immediately below him.

Soon the president came, others following, crowding out into the portico, jostling one another in their eagerness to hear the news.

“You are a messenger from Rennes?”

“I am the delegate sent by the Literary Chamber of that city to inform you here in Nantes of what is taking place.”

“Your name?”

Andre-Louis paused.  “The less we mention names perhaps the better.”