He dashed forward, to meet them, trying by mingled curses and insults to stay their flight.
"Cowards!" he vociferated, "traitors! You flee--and you are ten against one! Where are you going?
To your own homes.

Fools! you will find the gendarmes there only awaiting your coming to conduct you to the scaffold.

Is it not better to die with your weapons in your hands?
Come--right about.

Follow me! We may still conquer.

Reinforcements are at hand; two thousand men are following me!" He promised them two thousand men; had he promised them ten thousand, twenty thousand--an army and cannon, it would have made no difference.
Not until they reached the wide-open space of the cross-roads, where they had talked so confidently scarcely an hour before, did the most intelligent of the throng regain their senses, while the others fled in every direction.
About a hundred of the bravest and most determined of the conspirators gathered around M.Lacheneur.In the little crowd was the abbe, gloomy and despondent.