Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from The Forty-Five Guardsmen
On the 26th of October, in the year 1585, the barriers of the gate of Saint Antoine were still closed, contrary to the usual custom, at half-past ten in the morning.
At a quarter to eleven, a guard of twenty Swiss, who, by their uniform, were recognised to be Swiss from the small cantons, that is to say, the best friends of Henry the Third, then reigning, debouched from the street de la Mortellerie, and advanced towards the gate of Saint Antoine, which opened, and closed behind them. Once outside this gate, they ranged themselves along the hedges, which, outside the barrier, bordered the scattered enclosures on each side of the road, and, by their appearance alone, drove back a good number of peasants and small bourgeois, coming from Montreuil, Vincennes, or Saint Maur, to enter the city before noon, an operation they were not enabled to effect, the gate, as we have observed, being found closed.
If it is true that a crowd naturally brings disorder in its train, we might suppose that, by sending this guard, Monsieur the Provost intended to prevent the disorder which might take place at the gate of Saint Antoine.
In fact, the assemblage was considerable; it arrived by three converging roads, and, at every moment, friars from the convents of the suburbs, women seated in the panniers of their donkeys, peasants in their carts, increased this already compact mass, which the unusual closing of the gates arrested at the barriers, and all, by their questions, more or less hurried, produced a species of low continued murmur; whilst, at times, some voices, issuing from the general diapason, ascended even to the octave of menace or complaint.
We might also remark, besides this mass of arrivals who were desirous of entering the town, some peculiar groups.
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