The poor famished fellows eagerly devoured their portions while breathing on their fingers to warm them; and, from the depths of adjoining streets, where vague black forms sat on the white thresholds of the houses, there came sudden bursts of laughter.

At the windows emboldened, inquisitive women, with silk handkerchiefs tied round their heads, watched the repast of those terrible insurgents, those blood-suckers who went in turn to the market pump to drink a little water in the hollows of their hands.
While the town-hall was being invaded, the gendarmes' barracks, situated a few steps away, in the Rue Canquoin, which leads to the market, had also fallen into the hands of the mob.

The gendarmes were surprised in their beds and disarmed in a few minutes.

The impetus of the crowd had carried Miette and Silvere along in this direction.

The girl, who still clasped her flagstaff to her breast, was pushed against the wall of the barracks, while the young man, carried away by the human wave, penetrated into the interior, and helped his comrades to wrest from the gendarmes the carbines which they had hastily caught up.