At sight of the dying man, supported in the arms of two of his comrades, one of the individuals, who, concealed under the arch, had watched the beginning of the popular excitement, said to the drummers: "Your comrade drank, perhaps, at some fountain on the road?"
"Yes, sir," replied one; "he was very thirsty; he drank two mouthfuls of water on the Place du Chatelet."
"Then he is poisoned," said the man.
"Poisoned?" cried several voices.
"It is not surprising," replied the man, in a mysterious tone; "poison is thrown into the public fountains; and this very morning a man was massacred in the Rue Beaubourg who was discovered emptying a paper of arsenic into a pot of wine at a public-house."[38]
Having said these words, the man disappeared in the crowd.This report, no less absurd than the tales about the poisoning of the Hospital patients, was received with a general burst of indignation.Five or six ragged beings, regular ruffians, seized the body of the expiring drummer, hoisted it upon their shoulders, in spite of all the efforts of his comrades to prevent them, and paraded the square exhibiting the dismal trophy.Ciboule and the quarryman went before, crying: "Wake way for the corpse! This is how they poison the people!"
A fresh incident now attracted the attention of the crowd.A travelling-