But professional sentiment soon calmed him, and he pushed the bewildered couple out, saying: 

“Come back to-morrow, come back to-morrow, my friends.  I haven’t any time to-day.”

As he equipped himself from head to foot, he gave a series of important orders to his servant: 

“Run over to Lieutenant Picart and to Second Lieutenant Pommel, and tell them that I am expecting them here immediately.  Also send me Torchebeuf with his drum.  Quick! quick!”

When Celeste had gone out, he sat down and thought over the situation and the difficulties which he would have to surmount.

The three men arrived together in their working clothes.  The commandant, who expected to see them in uniform, felt a little shocked.

“Don’t you people know anything?  The emperor has been taken prisoner, the Republic has been proclaimed.  We must act.  My position is delicate, I might even say dangerous.”

He reflected for a few moments before his bewildered subordinates, then he continued: 

“We must act and not hesitate; minutes count as hours in times like these.  All depends on the promptness of our decision.  You, Picart, go to the cure and order him to ring the alarm-bell, in order to get together the people, to whom I am going to announce the news.  You, Torchebeuf beat the tattoo throughout the whole neighborhood as far as the hamlets of Gerisaie and Salmare, in order to assemble the militia in the public square.  You, Pommel, get your uniform on quickly, just the coat and cap.  We are going to the town-hall to demand Monsieur de Varnetot to surrender his powers to me.  Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

“Now carry out those orders quickly.  I will go over to your house with you, Pommel, since we shall act together.”

Five minutes later, the commandant and his subordinates, armed to the teeth, appeared on the square, just as the little Viscount de Varnetot, his legs encased in gaiters as for a hunting party, his gun on his shoulder, was coming down the other street at double-quick time, followed by his three green-coated guards, their swords at their sides and their guns swung over their shoulders.

While the doctor stopped, bewildered, the four men entered the town-hall and closed the door behind them.

“They have outstripped us,” muttered the physician, “we must now wait for reenforcements.  There is nothing to do for the present.”

Lieutenant Picart now appeared on the scene.

“The priest refuses to obey,” he said.  “He has even locked himself in the church with the sexton and beadle.”

On the other side of the square, opposite the white, tightly closed town-hall, stood the church, silent and dark, with its massive oak door studded with iron.

But just as the perplexed inhabitants were sticking their heads out of the windows or coming out on their doorsteps, the drum suddenly began to be heard, and Torchebeuf appeared, furiously beating the tattoo.  He crossed the square running, and disappeared along the road leading to the fields.