The Constable was using a great deal of powder; the time seemed long to the men and women who were counting the number of reports, and there seemed no end to the noise.

Sixty guns meant a princess, one hundred and one meant a prince.

When the sixty-first was heard, there was great rejoicing, for then they knew that the duchess had borne a son; when, however, another shot followed the one hundred and first, a clever advocate suggested that perhaps there were two princesses.

When one hundred and sixty-one guns had been fired, they said it might be a boy and a girl; when the one hundred and eightieth came, the schoolmaster, whose wife had presented him with seven daughters, exclaimed: "Perhaps there are triplets, 'feminini generis!" But this supposition was confuted by the next shot.

When the firing ceased after the two hundred and second gun, the people knew that their beloved duchess was the mother of twin boys.
The city went crazy with joy.