Within is the sound of mere martyr invincibility; tempered with the due tone of plaintiveness.
Without is the infinite expectant hum,--growing drowsier a little.

So has it lasted for six-and-thirty hours.
But hark, through the dead of midnight, what tramp is this?
Tramp as of armed men, foot and horse; Gardes Francaises, Gardes Suisses: marching hither; in silent regularity; in the flare of torchlight! There are Sappers, too, with axes and crowbars: apparently, if the doors open not, they will be forced!--It is Captain D'Agoust, missioned from Versailles.
D'Agoust, a man of known firmness;--who once forced Prince Conde himself, by mere incessant looking at him, to give satisfaction and fight; (Weber, i.

283.) he now, with axes and torches is advancing on the very sanctuary of Justice.

Sacrilegious; yet what help?
The man is a soldier; looks merely at his orders; impassive, moves forward like an inanimate engine.
The doors open on summons, there need no axes; door after door.

And now the innermost door opens; discloses the long-gowned Senators of France: a hundred and sixty-seven by tale, seventeen of them Peers; sitting there, majestic, 'in permanent session.' Were not the men military, and of cast-iron, this sight, this silence reechoing the clank of his own boots, might stagger him! For the hundred and sixty-seven receive him in perfect silence; which some liken to that of the Roman Senate overfallen by Brennus; some to that of a nest of coiners surprised by officers of the Police.