With great difficulty, but slowly and steadily, his men executed them:  amidst showers of stones, and the now determined attack of the people the soldiers returned to the barracks, leaving one of their officers, and one other man dead in the crowd; many of them were severely wounded; few, if any, had escaped some bruise or cut.  The people now conceived that they were going to take refuge in the barrack, and determined to drive them utterly out of the town; but, as soon as the soldiers had filed into the barrack yard, another murderous fire was discharged by those who had been left at the station.  Then Cathelineau, who was still in front of the crowd, and who was now armed with the bayonet, which he had taken from the point of the musket, remembered the cannon, and he became for a moment pale as he thought of the dreadful slaughter which would take place, if the colonel were able to effect his purpose of playing it upon the town.

“The cannon!” whispered he to Foret, who was still at his side; “they will fall like leaves in autumn, if we don’t prevent it.”

“Have they it ready?” said Foret.

“Always,” said the other, “they have nothing to do but wheel it into the street; and they are at it, you hear the noise of the wheels this moment.  We must bear one discharge from it, and the next, if there be a second, shall fall upon the soldiers.”

Others, beside Cathelineau, recognized the sound of the moving wheels—­and, the cannon, the cannon, they will fire the cannon on us,” was heard from side to side among the crowd; but none attempted to run, not one of the whole mass attempted to fly, and when the barrack gates flew open, and the deadly mouth of the huge instrument was close upon them, they rushed upon it, determined at any rate, to preserve their houses, their wives, and their children from the awful destruction of a prolonged firing.

“They must have one shot at us,” said a man in a trembling whisper to his neighbour.  “God send it were over!” replied the other, as the gates of the barrack-yard were thrown back.

The greater number of the soldiers and the two officers who had returned with them, made good their retreat into the barracks, under the fire of their comrades, who had been left there.  Some three or four had been pulled and hustled into the crowd, and their arms were quickly taken from them and they were sent back to the auberge as prisoners.  The colonel, as soon as he found himself in his own quarters, gave immediate orders that the gun should be wheeled round to the barrack-yard gate, which had hitherto been kept closed, and that the moment the gates could be got open it should be fired on the crowd.  These gates faced directly into the square, and the destruction caused by one shot would have been tremendous.  The colonel, moreover, calculated that in the confusion he would have been able to reload.  The gun, in its original position, was pointed on the town, but it was immediately seen, that without moving it, it could not be brought to bear upon the crowd congregated round the barracks.