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his wife, Philoméne. Farther on, Pierron and Pierronne, with their backs turned, were hiding their faces. No one was drinking, they had simply taken shelter. Étienne recognized Rasseneur and was turning away, when the latter added: "You don't want to see me, eh? I warned you, things are getting awkward. Now you may ask for bread, they'll give you lead." Then Étienne came back and replied: "What troubles me is, the cowards who fold their arms and watch us risking our skins." "Your notion, then, is to pillage over there?" asked Rasseneur. "My notion is to remain to the last with our friends, quit by dying together." In despair, Étienne went back into the crowd, ready to die. On the road, three children were throwing stones, and he gave them a good kick, shouting out to his comrades that it was no good breaking windows. Bébert and Lydie, who had rejoined Jeanlin, were learning from him how to work the sling. They each sent a flint, playing at who could do the most damage. Lydie had awkwardly cracked the head of a woman in the crowd, and the two boys were loudly laughing. Bonnemort and Mouque, seated on a bench, were gazing at them behind. Bonnemort's swollen legs bore him so badly, that he had great difficulty in dragging himself so far; no one knew what curiosity impelled him, for his face had the earthy look of those days when he never spoke a word. Nobody, however, any longer obeyed Étienne. The stones, in spite of his orders, went on hailing, and he was astonished and terrified by these brutes he had unmuzzled, who were so slow to move and then so terrible, so ferociously tenacious in their rage. All the old Flemish blood was there, heavy and placid, taking months to get heated, and then giving itself up to abominable savagery, listening to nothing until the beast was glutted by atrocities. In his southern land crowds flamed up more quickly, but they did not effect so much. He had to struggle with Levaque to obtain possession of his axe, and he knew not how to keep back