In exitu Israel

by S. Baring-Gould

FOOTNOTES:

[1] The present Place de la Concorde.

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CHAPTER XXXI.

That night few persons in Paris closed their eyes. The sky was red with fires made at all the barriers. In 1784 the octroi wall had been built round Paris, with gates called barrières, at which taxes were levied on eatables and wines brought into the capital. The people, who regarded this tax as an imposition, unjust and intolerable, attacked the gates during the day and again during the night, and destroyed them. The armourers' shops were pillaged, and the streets were paraded by bands of men armed with such weapons as they could get. The Baron de Besenval, finding that resistance was impossible, withdrew his troops from the town, and sent to Versailles for orders.

On Monday morning the electors assembled at the Hôtel de Ville, and thinking it necessary to give their authority a more legal form, they appointed M. de Flesselles administrator of the city. He refused to act without a formal requisition. This was given him, and a number of electors were associated with him to form a municipality invested with full powers. This municipality summoned before it the lieutenant of police, and in a few hours drew up a plan for the formation of a militia corps, to be composed of forty-eight thousand men, who were to wear instead of the green cockade another composed of blue and red, the Parisian colours. Every one with this cockade bearing arms, who was not enrolled in the corps of his district, was to be disarmed and punished.

The provost Flesselles by no means sympathised with this movement, and used every opportunity that presented itself of retarding the enrolment, and the subsequent armament of the body of militia so rapidly formed. He had been that day summoned by the king to Versailles, yet he dared not go there.

The people clamoured for guns. The Garde-Meuble had been broken open in the morning, and its rusty swords and antique armour had been distributed among the mob. But that was nothing. Flesselles promised twelve thousand guns the same day; before the night fell, surely the Marshal de Broglie would pour his troops upon Paris—so thought the provost. Berthier, it was well known, had caused thirty thousand muskets to be imported, and had commanded two hundred thousand cartridges to be made. The people grew impatient. Valuable time was being lost; the mercenaries might be upon them at any moment. The provost then declared that the guns he had promised were on their way to the Hôtel de Ville from the manufactory at Charleville, and waggons were shortly after seen to traverse La Grève, inscribed with the word Artillerie. These waggons drew up at the entrance of the Hôtel, and the cases were borne into the magazines.

The provost then refused to unpack the weapons, without French guardsmen to attend to their orderly distribution. The officers declined to send soldiers for the purpose; consequently, the people insisted on the electors opening the cases. They did so, and found them to contain old linen.

At this sight the people became furious, and threatened the provost, so that to appease them he was obliged to give orders for the immediate manufacture of fifty thousand pikes. As the people could see the fires roar, the bellows go, and hear the clink of the hammer, and see the flash of the sparks, they were satisfied, at least for a while.

In the meantime, the arsenal was besieged by a crowd, desiring gunpowder. They were solemnly assured that it was empty. An invalid and a wig-maker were stationed near it to keep watch. Presently they saw a number of barrels brought out and rolled on board some boats in the Seine. They gave the alarm; the boats were seized, and the gunpowder transported to the Hôtel de Ville, and distributed among the people by the Abbé Lefebvre.

The report spread that five regiments at S. Denis were on the move with forty pieces of artillery; that at Gonesse there were fifty cannons, and at Bourget sixty, and that the troops were advancing.

The terror of the people became excessive. Drums rattled in every street, the bells of all the churches pealed the alarm. Two cannons, one ornamented with silver, which had been found in the Garde-Meuble, were drawn in front of the Hôtel de Ville and loaded. The prison of La Force was burst into, and all the debtors were released. The soldiers of the French guard refused to obey their officers, and deserted their barrack to fling themselves into the arms of the people. Old men, women, and children carried paving-stones up into the attics of the houses, to hurl down on the troops that were momentarily expected to enter Paris; and those able-bodied men who were without arms threw up barricades at the ends of the streets. Others tore the lead off the roofs of their houses and melted it up into bullets.

As the darkness descended over the city, the fear of the people redoubled. All at once it was reported that there was a store of guns at the Invalides. The deputies of one district went immediately to Besenval, the commandant, and Sombreuil, the governor of the Hôtel.

Besenval answered that he must write for orders from Versailles before he could deliver them up. He accordingly wrote to Marshal de Broglie to hasten down upon Paris. The deputies returned with his answer, and it was decided that if, on the morrow, the arms were not given up, they should be seized by force.

M. de Sombreuil had taken precautions some days previously. He had caused to be transported into the vaults beneath the dome of the Invalides all the stands of arms, and these to be covered with straw. As soon as the demand for them was made, he gave orders that the guns should be dismounted, and the locks unscrewed and removed. But the invalids, who sympathised with the popular movement, did their work so slowly, that during the night they had only pulled twenty guns to pieces.

Early in the morning of the 15th, before the day began to dawn, shots were fired against the walls of the Bastille, and De Launay, the governor, mounted to the summit of the towers and listened. He heard the distant murmuring of the city, and the rumble of vehicles in the streets; he saw the red glow of the burning barriers, and the countless lines of light in the black city. There was no mob around the gates into the Rue S. Antoine, so he returned below. He had taken precautions. His cannons were loaded with grape-shot. Six cart-loads of paving-stones, old iron and cannon-balls, had been carried to the top of the towers to crush his assailants. In the bottom loop-holes he had placed twelve large rampart-guns, each of which carried a pound and a half of bullets. His trustiest soldiers, the Swiss, thirty-two in number, he kept below, and distributed his eighty-two invalids about the towers.

From dawn the committee of electors or extemporised municipality had been sitting in the town-hall.

Messengers came from the Faubourg S. Antoine to announce that the guns of the Bastille had been run out and threatened the town.

The committee resolved on sending a deputation to request the withdrawal of the cannons, and that the governor would promise to refrain from hostilities, assuring him on their side that the people of Paris would respect the fortress if he would accede to their request. The three deputies were courteously received by the governor; he conducted them into his house, and regaled them with a sumptuous breakfast. He undertook to remove the cannons turned against the town, and gave orders in their hearing to that effect. Shortly after it was announced that his orders had been executed. The deputation then took their leave, and were crossing the drawbridge lowered to give them passage, when three other deputies, MM. Thuriot de la Rozière, Bourlier, and Toulouse, despatched by the district of La Culture, demanded admittance. It was refused. Nevertheless, Thuriot forced his way into the Bastille, and summoned the garrison to surrender in the name of the country. The French soldiers hung their heads, but the Swiss remained unmoved. De Launay saw by the action and expression of the invalids that his garrison was divided.

When M. Thuriot returned to the people, and they learned from his lips that the governor refused to admit the city militia, shouts of rage arose, and some, thinking the delegate was to blame, attacked him with blows. Forcing his way through the mob, he made for the Hôtel de Ville. The Place la Grève then presented a strange spectacle. It had become the central point to which everything converged. Waggons, carts, cattle, corn, money, weapons,—everything, in short, was brought there. The pikes ordered by Flesselles had all been manufactured in the night, and were being distributed to the new militia. The place was inundated with people rolling in waves from side to side, and running up the stairs of the Hôtel de Ville, and pouring even into the hall of the committee.

M. Thuriot had to beat his way with his fists to the stairs, and then, when he had reached the ante-chamber, he stuck there unable to advance or retire, wedged immovably into the compact mass of human beings who filled it. With his loud, husky voice he bellowed out his mission, and continued roaring till some of the citizen guard forced a way for him through the throng. Thus he arrived, thrust on by those who closed in behind him, in the saloon where sat the municipality then engaged in hearing the case of a lad of fourteen, who was accused of having sold for a crown apiece several national cockades worth a few sous. The excitement of the populace was at its height, so clearly did it perceive the meanness of this speculation. The committee ordered the seizure of the cockades, and the money to be distributed among the poor.

'That is not sufficient,' shouted one of the audience; 'we are not brigands, like those who sacked the house of Réveillon,—we don't choose to be taken for brigands, or thieves, or pickpockets. The cockade is an honourable badge. He who uses it for fraudulent purposes outrages the national honour. Let him be tried and sentenced for treason.'

The motion was applauded, and the young man was ordered to prison.

M. Thuriot then reported what had occurred in the Bastille; but the people listened with mistrust, and continued to cry out for arms.

Flesselles, the president of the committee, tried in vain to silence the multitude; he rang his bell and gesticulated vehemently, but they redoubled their demands.

At that moment, the deputation previously sent by the committee arrived and gave an account of their mission. This second report calmed the tumult, and Flesselles, profiting by the occasion, drew up a proclamation to the people informing them of the good intentions of the governor of the Bastille. MM. Boucher and Thuriot were passed out upon the balcony to read it to the mob, preceded by the trumpets of the town-hall. The trumpets pealed forth the summons, and the noise in the Place de Grève ceased instantly, dying into a breathless calm.

M. Thuriot de la Rozière began to read the proclamation, but he had hardly uttered the opening sentences, before the boom of cannon made the wall vibrate behind him. He stopped and lowered the paper.

A rattling explosion of artillery followed; then a cry rose from a band of people who poured up from the narrow streets to the east,—'Treason! it is the cannon of the Bastille!'

The ranks opened before a messenger, wounded in the arm and bleeding, who fled to the gates of the Hôtel de Ville with the news that the Governor de Launay was massacring the people.

Thuriot tore the paper in his hand into shreds and cast it into the air.

Cries of rage rose from the vast multitude surging in the Place around the statue of Louis XIV. Then from those far in the rear burst a roar like that of a wild beast lashed into fury by its keeper, and a compact body rushed through the general crowd laden with arms, which they distributed to all who wore the patriotic cockade. The arms of the Invalids had fallen into the hands of the people.

Then from all quarters rose the cry,—'To the Bastille!'

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CHAPTER XXXII.

When M. Thuriot de la Rozière left the Bastille with the refusal of the governor to receive into it a detachment of city guards, the people drew off from the gate to consult. The answer of De Launay was not of a nature to satisfy them. But what step it was advisable to take was by no means clear. During this moment of hesitation a blacksmith, Tournay by name, leaped from the roof of a perfumer's shop upon the battlement of the wall surrounding the gardens, and which enclosed the whole area of the fortress. Thence he descended to the guard-house, and thence into the first court. He entered the lodge in quest of the keys of the gate, but they were not there; then he demanded a hatchet.

Aubin Bonnemère, an old soldier, flung him one, and Tournay cut, hacked, and broke through the chains, and let fall the first drawbridge. The crowd rushed in and filled the court. The firing began at once from the towers and the loop-holes below.

Bonnemère heading the people ran to the second drawbridge, hoping to succeed with it as they had with the first; but a discharge of musketry drove them back. Some sheltered themselves under the grating, some in the elm-court, leaving several writhing in the agonies of death on the pavement.

At the same time, the fire-brigade arrived with their engines, and began to jerk a stream of water against the towers of the Bastille with the intention of deluging the cannons and spoiling their priming. But the jets would not reach so far, and the garrison laughed at the attempt. The sound of fire-arms had attracted an immense crowd with incredible rapidity, and along with the people arrived numbers of the city militia, wearing their old uniform of the French guard. The mob instantly placed themselves under their orders, elected their officers, and swore obedience to their commands.

It was at this moment that Élie, an officer belonging to the Queen's regiment, knowing the importance of an uniform, quickly changed his private dress for the brilliant livery of his corps, and was at once elected commander of the French guards. Hullin, a gamekeeper of the Marquis de Conflans, mistaken for a soldier, because he wore his master's livery, was elected captain of the workmen.

Several times did the people fling themselves upon the second gate, but each time the discharge of a rampart-gun loaded with bullets drove them back with terrible slaughter.

This was the moment when a deputation from the Hôtel de Ville arrived and sought admission to the fortress. They approached slowly, waving their white handkerchiefs, but in the fire and smoke they were not seen, and the defenders of the Bastille continued to pour from the towers a shower of lead.

The deputies determined to traverse the first court and knock at the gate; but as they prepared to pass under the vault of the portal from the Rue S. Antoine, the people beneath it, armed and firing upon the garrison, signed to them not to approach. The deputies then turned into the Rue de la Cerisaye, hoping to find admission by that entrance to the castle. But there the fight was raging with even greater fury. The besiegers were commanded by La Reynie. The embassy advanced, explained their mission, and implored the people to suspend hostilities. Immediately, at La Reynie's command, the firing ceased, and the deputies renewed their signals and slowly neared the citadel, followed by the people with their arms reversed.

But scarcely had they approached near the gate, when a volley of musketry struck down half a dozen men around the messengers, and the people enraged at this action, which they regarded as perfidy, whereas in all probability it arose from a mistake, recommenced their firing. Finding it impossible to execute their mission, the delegates returned to the town-hall.

In the meantime, reinforcements had arrived. Peillon and the architect, Palloy, marched to the attack at the head of a company of citizens. They were followed by the brothers Kabers, chemists, conducting the corps of their trade; then came Turpin, fusilier of the company of Brache, and Maillard alone, but huge, with a solemn face and black dress,—a gloomy giant. From the direction of the arsenal came up another troop, headed by Geudin, a lad of seventeen. His father was a workman engaged in the citadel; he wished to save his life at the risk of his own.

Shortly after, a second deputation from the Hôtel de Ville arrived, headed by the flag with the city arms, and a drummer. The drum rattled a recall, and the crowd, believing that the signal announced the arrival of the troops, fell back. But when they found that it announced another embassy, they testified their impatience, and assured the deputies that it was impossible for them to cross the court. The deputies persisted, and entered the open space strewn with corpses. The insurgents ceased firing, and the signal of the embassy was acknowledged from the towers by the hoisting of a white flag. But, unfortunately, the towers were manned by French soldiers, and the gates by Swiss; and the latter, unaware of what the invalids had done, discharged the rampart-gun upon the deputies.

At that moment the rumble of the cannon was heard advancing along the Port au Blé.

'The cannon, my friends, the cannon!' bellowed Élie, and the silver-mounted gun from the Garde-Meuble was run into the court and pointed at the gate.

A man named Cholat had brought the guns to the assistance of the besiegers. He had previously visited the powder magazine, and had provided himself by force with sufficient ammunition. These guns were followed soon after by the cannon from the Invalides. Georget, a marine, whose thigh was broken by a ball, seated himself on a heap of stones and directed some novices in the use of cannon how to load and to discharge the piece under his charge.

Three cart-loads of straw had been pushed forward against the imperishable second gate and set on fire. Immediately the rampart-gun, which had already done such havoc, blew a storm of grape among those who crept up under cover of the straw, and dispersed them. The flame and smoke rose high into the air, and concealed the movements of the garrison; the cannon of the insurgents thundered incessantly, and volleys of bullets pattered innocuously against the hard walls of the fortress. One ball from a gun pointed by Élie carried away the cap of one of the pepper-boxes on the nearest tower, and struck down an invalid named Fortuné, the first of the garrison who perished in the action. The crash of the falling roof alarmed the invalids, who fought without heart and with reluctance.

In the meantime, the guard-houses opening on the court had caught fire, and were in a blaze. In one of them was a young and beautiful girl, who had secreted herself in her chamber at the beginning of the fight. The flames drove her from her shelter, and she fled across the yard with dishevelled hair and with face pale with fear.

The people, supposing her to be the governor's daughter, uttered loud cries of 'Seize her! and threaten De Launay with her death, unless he surrender.'

At these words, a score of men fell upon her. In vain did she assure them that she was no relation of the governor; the madmen, drunk with excitement, would have massacred her, had not Aubin Bonnemère forced his way through them and protected her against their blows, exclaiming, 'Cowards! by striking a woman, you disgrace a sacred cause!'

But he was unable to allay the general intoxication of rage. Another discharge of grape strewed the ground with corpses.

'We will not kill her,' shouted a demoniac; 'the fire shall devour the girl. If De Launay will not surrender, he shall see his child expire in the flames;' and laying hold on the young lady, he flung her on a straw bed, and set fire to it. The terrified girl uttered a piercing scream and fainted.

That cry drew M. de Monsigny, commandant of the gunners in the citadel, to the parapet. He looked through an embrasure, and recognised his daughter. The assailants saw him lift his hands in the agony of his fear, and at the same moment a bullet entered his breast, and he fell back into the arms of the invalids.

But Bonnemère had not abandoned the unfortunate girl; regardless of the blows showered upon him, and the opposition he met with, the brave man plunged through the ferocious band that surrounded her, he trod out the flames, and raising her insensible form in his nervous arms, bore her away to a house in the Rue S. Antoine, where she could be in safety, and then returned to his place at the head of the besiegers. Maillard, Élie, and Hullin, finding that the burning straw obscured the view of the drawbridge, and prevented them from taking accurate aim, displaced the carts, and by means of poles strewed the flaming straw about the yard, where it was stamped out by the militia, who now filled it.

They then advanced to the edge of the moat and shouted to the governor to lower the bridge. M. de Flue, the officer commanding the Swiss, replied through the battlements that the garrison would yield if they were allowed to march forth with all the honours of war.

'No,' was the answer; 'no more arms for those who have butchered the people.'

To account for this readiness to entertain the idea of capitulation, we must visit the interior of the citadel.

Upon the death of Monsigny, the invalids had refused to continue the defence. They could not forget that they were Frenchmen, and that those whose blood they were shedding were their countrymen.

De Launay, finding it impossible to hold out, when the majority of his garrison were mutinous, in the insanity of rage and fear, rushed to the powder magazine with a lighted match to blow up the castle and destroy with it the assailants and the besieged. A soldier, Ferrand by name, was sentinel at the door. Divining the purpose of the governor, he refused to give him admission to the magazine, snatched the match from his hand, and extinguished it with his foot.

When the terms of surrender proposed by M. de Flue had been refused, the officer consented to lay down his arms on condition that no harm should be offered to the garrison. A tumult of contradictory answers arose. Some promised what was demanded, others required unconditional surrender. At last, after several minutes of uproar, a scrap of paper was passed though an embrasure in the wall. A plank was run across the moat, but, as there was no resting-place for the end on the farther side, a number of men jumped upon that portion which rested on the pavement of the yard and sustained the plank in its horizontal position, whilst one of the crowd ran along it and reached his hand towards the paper. But whether his situation rendered him giddy, or whether the counterpoise was not effectually maintained, is uncertain; he reeled and fell over into the fosse and perished. The huge Maillard sprang upon the plank in his place, and succeeded in possessing himself of the note which he remitted to Élie. It contained these words:—

'We have twenty thousand charges of gunpowder. Unless you accept our terms of capitulation, we will blow up the garrison and the whole quarter of the town.'

'I accept, on the word of honour of an officer,' called Élie; 'lower the drawbridge.'

But the crowd protested against this capitulation, being exasperated against the garrison for having thinned their numbers with their bullets; and running the cannon forward to the brink of the fosse, they pointed it, and prepared to fire, when a young and beautiful girl, wearing a peasant's scarlet cap, to which was pinned the national rosette, and holding a musket in one hand, and a blue cloak over her other arm, suddenly cast her bonnet upon the touch-hole, and held it resolutely there.

At the same moment the lesser drawbridge was lowered, and Élie, Hullin, Maillard, and Cholat leaped upon it and prevented others from crossing till they had attached it to the ground with cramps and nails; then, flying to the other side, they let the great bridge fall with a crash.

Immediately the French guard marched across, and with great forethought ranged themselves on either side of the bridge, to prevent the crowd, which prepared to rush over it, from forcing one another over the edge into the moat.

The tunnel that opened before them through the massive walls of the fortress was illumined by the ruddy glare of the governor's house and guard-houses, which were in flames, and a streak of fire shone even into the well-like quadrangle in the centre.

A light dusty rain had been falling, so light as not to wet any one, but to draw a silvery haze over the scene. As the insurgents rushed through the portal, the sun pierced this veil and painted upon it a portion of a rainbow above the huge black towers.

One of the first to enter the court of the Bastille was the girl who had prevented the gun from being discharged. It was Madeleine.

In the quadrangle were drawn up the garrison, on the right the invalids, on the left the Swiss.

Some of the people, in their fury, rushed upon them. Élie drew his sword, and stood before the French veterans.

'I have given my word of honour that they shall be untouched,' he cried; 'they are our brothers. Respect your victory.'

But the authority which had been acknowledged in battle was little regarded in the moment of triumph, and the insurgents fell upon the Swiss, against whom they were especially exasperated.

Hullin and Élie continued to cry, 'Spare them. Respect your victory; let no blood be shed by us within these accursed walls!' but the rage of the assailants rendered them deaf to the appeals of their officers.

'Turn their coats!' cried Madeleine.

'Turn their coats; yes, let them be turned,' repeated the brave Élie; and in an instant the uniform of the Swiss was torn off by ready hands and reversed.

'Nicholas, help!' called Madeleine, as she rushed upon the corporal, and rent his uniform from his back.

In the scuffle, one of the guard fled,—the man who stood next to Deschwanden.

A shout of rage burst from the victors, and they turned in pursuit. The man ran towards the great entrance, but it was blocked by an advancing crowd of people; he turned and fled round the quadrangle, with a score of pursuers at his heels. He tried the chapel door, but it was locked, then he doubled and fled towards the new buildings. As he ran up the steps, a dozen hands seized him. With a scream, so piercing that the walls of the great square echoed it again and again, he went down, and was literally hacked to pieces. This man was Beckhard, the gunner, who had produced the greatest havoc among the people by the discharges of the rampart gun near the gate.

The excitement of the chase and the murder had arrested the attention of the mob.

Madeleine and Nicholas had taken advantage of the incident to equip the corporal in the blue cloak and red cap of the girl, and to arm him with her rifle.

'Join us, quick!' she whispered; then aloud in her shrill tones: 'My friends! our brothers are languishing in these dungeons. Let our first act be their release!'

'To the dungeons!' was answered by the people.

'Lead off the prisoners,' ordered Élie; and the Swiss guard, minus their corporal and their gunner, were marched out of the citadel, which they had defended with so much gallantry. As they appeared in the streets, their turned coats saved them from being massacred by the people, for they were mistaken for prisoners who had just been liberated.

Floods of excited besiegers continued to pour into the great court, and the invalids were exposed to imminent danger. Those who had brothers and fathers killed in the siege demanded their blood. They fell upon one of them,—the man Ferrand, who had prevented the governor from blowing up the citadel,—and killed him; then cut off his hands and carried them about on the end of pikes. The butchery of the rest would inevitably have followed, had not the Sieur Marqué, sergeant of the French guard, forced his way, followed by his company, through the mob into the quadrangle, and surrounded the invalids, shouting: 'Pardon, pardon for your comrades, your brothers!'

These words met with an instant response, so versatile is a mob, and a lane was opened through the crowd to allow the twenty-two invalids, and eleven little Swiss children belonging to the foreign detachment, to leave the castle, escorted by the French guard, who continued to cry out as they advanced, 'The people have pardoned; open your ranks.'

In the meantime, Cholat had hunted out De Launay, who stoutly denied that he was the governor. But Cholat knew him, and dragging him along, he called to Hullin and a couple of grenadiers to assist him in conveying him to the tribunal of the electors, to be by them judged.

As De Launay was brought into the quadrangle, a thousand voices cried for his blood. He quaked with fear, and drawing a dagger, attempted to stab himself, but Cholat knocked the weapon from his grasp, not, however, before De Launay had wounded himself in the hand.

Hullin and Cholat attempted to force their way through the crowd with their prisoner between them. Hullin, an immense man, covered him with his person. One of the crowd struck at the governor with a sabre, but only cut his clothes. His captors, redoubling their efforts, succeeded in forcing their way through the gates and reaching the street. In the outer court they were joined by some others, animated by the same desire of saving the governor from the rabble, and bringing him to justice.

But the rush of the tide was against them; they were breasting waves of life rolled towards the Bastille from every quarter of Paris, to which the news spread like lightning that the citadel had fallen. Cholat was torn from the side of De Launay. The great Hullin held his prisoner as long as he could; finding that he could no longer protect him, he put his own hat on the governor's head, and then the blows aimed at the latter fell on his shoulders. But he wriggled his way through the crowd, grasping the prisoner, till he had reached the arcade S. Jean. There the mass of people swayed like a sea in a storm. Twice Hullin fell, and twice he regained his feet. Cholat had fallen. He had eaten nothing all day, and this last desperate effort to save a life had been too much for him. He fainted, and was well-nigh trodden to death beneath the feet of the crowd. Arné, who had taken his place beside the governor, was swallowed up in a whirlpool of people.

In another moment, the head of De Launay was cut off and held up on a pike, amidst the cheers of a brutal mob.

Madeleine, the corporal, thoroughly disguised, and by all supposed to be a leader of the insurgents, Nicholas, and Gabrielle, whom Madeleine had drawn with her, rushed to the steps of the new buildings. They were splashed with blood, where the gunner had fallen. A man had run a ladder against the clock-face, adorned with the chained automata, and was up at it, hacking them and their fetters to pieces.

A tumultuous rabble besieged the door of the new chapel, supposing it to be an entrance to the prisons, and would have burst it open, when it was unlocked from within, and the old chaplain appeared, saying, 'The spot is sacred.' The mob fell back out of reverence; but presently they observed the painting over the altar, which, by a refinement of cruelty, represented S. Peter in chains between his keepers.

'Look,' roared one of the crowd; 'in the house of God, despotism preaches to the captives that nothing but a miracle can deliver them from their bonds.'

'Follow me,' cried another, armed with a hatchet, leaping in. Directly the sanctuary was invaded, and the objectionable painting was removed; but no other injury was done.

In the meantime, the corporal, Nicholas, and the two women, followed by a number of men, armed with guns, hatchets, and pikes, rushed along the passage in the new buildings. Gabrielle conducted them. They reached the corridor in the well-court, between the towers Du Pont and De la Liberté.

'Thirty-five,' said Gabrielle, arresting them at the door where Madame Berthier was confined.

Hatchets, bars, and hammers were at once applied, and the door was forced in.

Before them stood the lady, with the yellow cat on her shoulder, hissing with fright, with erect back and tail.

Gabrielle fell into her arms, without speaking.

'I thought so,' said Madame Plomb; 'we have been expecting the towers to fall every minute. Now come away from here; they have been tottering for days—for years, I believe; come quickly away, or they will bury you under the ruins. I am going, and Gabriel is going, so none of you remain behind.'

Then striding over the shattered door with her cat still perched beside her head, holding Gabrielle's arm, she led the way into the corridor.

'Where is the Beast?' she asked suddenly, turning round on her deliverers. 'Ah! he is hidden. Wait a bit, I must go after him myself.'

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CHAPTER XXXIII.

The day of the 14th had been spent at Versailles by the Assembly, in sending deputations to the king which were answered evasively, and by the queen and Madame de Polignac in encouraging the officers, to whom was committed the task of restoring the ancient régime. The queen had walked in the orange-garden within sight of the soldiers, had spoken to and flattered their officers, and had ordered the distribution of wine among the troops.

In the meantime, messages were being transmitted to the Assembly from the Committee of Electors at the Hôtel de Ville of Paris, informing them of the state of the capital, and of the siege of the Bastille. The news of the progress of the insurrection spread through Versailles, and excited various emotions. That which predominated in the Hall of the States-General was vexation, because the work of the Assembly was interrupted by the popular agitation. The courtiers swaggered and laughed over it. That the people should be able to dint the walls of a fortress which had repulsed the Great Condé, was a supposition too absurd to be entertained with gravity.

The king retired early to bed. About midnight, the Duke de Liancourt entered his chamber to announce the capture of the Bastille, and, at his instance, he resolved to visit the Assembly next morning.

The Assembly had reassembled, ignorant of the dispositions of the king, and it resolved to send him another deputation; but when he arrived, without guards, and advancing into the hall spoke frankly and naturally, he was interrupted by bursts of applause.

But the Court had no intention of capitulating to the Assembly. Berthier and Foulon were at Versailles with De Broglie, Breteuil, and the rest of the new ministry. They saw that the crisis had arrived. Force must be employed, or all was lost.

A cabinet council was summoned; Monsieur and the Count d'Artois formed part of it. Every member composing it was anxious, those who least expressed it in their countenances were the old Marshal and Foulon. The Count d'Artois was in a condition of nervous trepidation; he had heard that his name had been denounced at the Palais Royal, along with those of Flesselles and De Launay. The Marshal de Broglie was indifferent, at least in appearance; if the king gave the command, he was ready to blow Paris into the Seine; he was a soldier, and his chief virtue lay in obedience to his superior. Foulon, calm and imperturbable, took snuff, and then dusted his face with his handkerchief; he extended his box to Berthier, who took a pinch with shaking fingers. His father-in-law raised his eyebrows, and a slight curl appeared on his lip.

Berthier wiped his eyes repeatedly, and dropped his handkerchief, picked it up and dropped it again.

The stout, amiable king had a weary, worried expression; his lock-making and hunting had been sadly interfered with by the business of state.

The ministers were singularly agreed. Their plans had been concerted to the smallest detail at De Broglie's lodgings. When each spoke, it was to address the king, and to urge him to adopt decisive measures.

'Sire,' said De Broglie, 'I have the troops massed about Paris. Two fresh regiments have to-day arrived. In my opinion, the people have been allowed to make head against authority too long. They must be restrained. If I may march my battalions upon Paris, I promise your majesty, in twelve hours the rebellion will be at an end.'

'But blood will be shed,' said the king, thoughtfully.

'A little, no doubt, will be spilt,' answered the marshal; 'but what of that?'

'No blood shall flow by my orders,' said Louis, decidedly.

'You are wrong, De Broglie,' observed Foulon; 'the chances are that no lives will be lost; when your thousands appear, bah! who will there be in the streets? The rats will have fled into the sewers, and in good time we shall send the cats after them. Bah! talk of bloodshed! there is not the possibility of that. What is the civilian before the soldier? Nothing. The soldier is trained to cut this way, and to thrust that way, to bang off his gun so, and to charge with his lance so. He has acquired the art of killing a man in some thirty different ways. The civilian knows that; he looks up at the man of war and says to himself, "I am a mere tyro at this art. Whilst I am making up my mind how to begin, whisk, whisk, whack, whack, I am a dead man in four slices. I had better run." And, sire! he runs.'

'You think there will be no loss of life?' asked the king, hesitatingly.

'Think, sire,' repeated Foulon, with admirable confidence; 'I am absolutely sure of it. Consider, there are some hundred cannon and bombs ready at a moment's notice to knock the house of our Parisian rebel into fine dust about his ears. In that house are the beloved wife, and the darling children. A bomb falling through the ceiling may reduce the beloved wife to pulp, and mash the darling children. And worse still, the furniture will all be destroyed, and the linen torn to shreds, and the strong box containing ten years' savings exploded high into the air to fall down the chimney of neighbour B., his implacable enemy. But worse still is the prospect of himself being maimed in a finger, a toe, an eye, or a nose, or of being blown bodily into that most objectionable of places—eternity.'

'But,' hesitated the king, 'if the good people were to oppose the troops——'

'Then,' said De Broglie, 'we must pour a volley among them and send them flying.'

'I cannot make up my mind to it,' said Louis, despairingly. 'Am not I the father of my people? How, then, can I consent to their being mown down by your bullets?'

'Sire,' observed Foulon; 'allow me to remark, without the least intention of presumption, that it is very necessary for a father sometimes to whip his little boys; that, unless he wishes his home to become a bear-garden, he must use the rod pretty freely and pretty resolutely.'

'Sire,' said Berthier, 'I know these ruffians. Assume the upper hand, and they will cringe to you. We must punish them for their audacity. Sire! there is no knowing to what extremities they may proceed unless they are reined up at once.'

'That is quite possible. I dare say you are right, gentlemen,' said the king; 'but yet——' and he shook his head.

'Your majesty must remember that the dignity of the throne has to be maintained,' said the Count d'Artois.

'I will not maintain it by steeping my royal purple in the blood of my subjects,' answered Louis.

'Then, in Heaven's name, sire!' exclaimed the prince, losing all patience, 'throw open the jails and let no murderer, coiner, or robber be broken henceforth on the wheel. Our great ancestor, S. Louis, when trying a criminal, was much inclined by his natural tenderness of disposition to pardon the man; but, happening to open his Psalter at the words, "Feci judicium et justitiam," he resolved to let Justice take her course. Mercy that is not tempered with justice degenerates into weakness.'

'I know,' said Louis, simply—so simply as to raise a smile on several lips—'I know that I am weak.'

'Yes, sire! you are naturally prone to humanity and kindness. But at a moment like this, to yield to the tenderer feelings, when a decided line of action is imperatively demanded, is indeed weakness.'

'Enough,' said Louis; 'you are rather hard on me, Charles.'

'For my part,' muttered Berthier, 'I don't care how many of those Parisian blackguards are despatched. They richly deserve breaking on the wheel, and, to my thinking, a sabre-cut, a bayonet-thrust, or a bullet, is too merciful treatment.'

'You are not their father, M. Berthier,' said the king.

'Sire,' began De Breteuil, in his loud, inflexible voice, 'it is not a question of blood or no blood, but a question of the blood of the rabble or of the court and the ministry. If the measure we suggest, namely, the reduction of the rebellion by fire and steel, be rejected, then nothing remains for us but to tender our resignations, and to provide for our own safety, as best we can. That the brutal mob which has massacred your majesty's servants, Governor De Launay and Provost Flesselles, will hunt us down and butcher us, I have no manner of doubt; your majesty, by condoning those murders, assures to the rabble impunity if they assail us.'

'No, no, De Breteuil, you are wrong there.'

'Pardon me, sire,' he answered stiffly.

'What am I to do?' exclaimed the unfortunate king; 'I wish one of my brothers had been born before me.'

The door half opened, and the queen appeared. She beckoned to the king, and he followed her, closing the door behind him.

'Supposing we fail,' said Vaudreuil; 'I believe that our only chance of safety is to fly the country.'

'If his majesty reject our proposal,' said Artois, 'I fly to-morrow. I have no desire to have my head carried about on the end of a pike.'

'What shall you do?' asked Berthier of his father-in-law.

'I!' answered Foulon, taking snuff; 'I shall die.'

'I shall be off,' said Berthier, roughly; 'I'm not likely to run the risk of being murdered like Flesselles, without the satisfaction of knowing that my death will be avenged.'

'I suppose if we retire, Necker will return,' said De Broglie. 'Well, let his majesty try peace; it has failed once, and it will fail again.'

'Are you aware, marshal,' said Foulon, 'that Mirabeau has been crying out for your head?'

'Let him come and try to take it,' answered De Broglie; 'he will find me his match, old as I am.'

The king returned, his brow wet with perspiration, and his whole countenance wrung with distress.

'Gentlemen,' he spoke; 'I will do what I can. I will do anything you desire of me—except give orders for the attack upon Paris. Happily, no blood has flowed yet by my orders. I swear that none shall flow by my command. My reflections are made; I am ready to follow your advice and that of her majesty in every particular except that which is against my conscience. I have tried to stifle its voice, I have tried to see the force of your arguments, but ever the horror starts up before me of the possibility, nay, I fear the probability of carnage, and of bearing to my grave a brand worse than that of Cain; he was his brother's murderer, how much worse for a father to give up his children to slaughter! I cannot—indeed I cannot—consent.'

'Sire,' said De Breteuil, 'if your majesty has taken that resolution, we have but one course open to us.'

'The queen has been urging me,' said the king; 'and, if it were not against my conscience, I would yield to her.'

'Then your majesty must allow us to tender our resignation,' said De Breteuil.

'This is really very hard,' the king exclaimed. 'Have you only one scheme, and that a bloody one? Why not try conciliation?'

'Sire, we have judged what is the only course open to us to propose; if your majesty rejects that, it is our duty to withdraw.'

'I am very sorry,' muttered the king; 'but it cannot be helped, I fear. Oh that we had come to an end of these troubles!'

When the ministers retired they shook hands. The three days' ministry was at an end.

'I am off,' said De Broglie; 'I shall not jeopardise my neck in France any longer.'

'And I follow you,' said the Count d'Artois.

'I shall take refuge in Belgium,' said Berthier.

'And I—' observed Foulon; 'I shall prepare to die—take a pinch of snuff.'

---

CHAPTER XXXIV.

Madame Plomb returned to her husband's house, and was greeted by the hounds with exultant barks and gambols.

Her confinement had made her more crazy than ever, and Gabrielle had insisted on attending her to the door, and would have remained with her, in spite of her own fears, had not Madame Berthier refused to permit it.

'No, my dear,' said the poor lady; 'suppose the wolf be here in bed with a great frilled nightcap on; and when you go up to him, mistaking him for me, and say, "Oh, what great eyes you have!" he answers, "To see you the better, my dear;" and when you say, "Oh, what white teeth you have!" he rushes out upon you roaring, "To eat you the better, my dear—" That will never do; we must kill the wolf first, then you shall stay with me.'

'Madame,' said Gustave, 'your honoured husband is at Versailles.'

'At Versailles, is he? Pray, what is he doing there?'

'Madame,' answered the porter, 'he is one of his gracious majesty's new ministers.'

'Then his gracious majesty is going to eat up the people,' said the poor lady. 'Gustave, have the dogs been good?'

'They have been devils, madame,' exclaimed the porter, shaking his fist at them. 'They have leaped and barked all day long, and all night long as well. How is a person to sleep, if at his ear are chained fiends whose throats are never tired of emitting frightful howls? Ah, you ruffians!' he cried, again shaking his fist; 'I will scoop out your eyes, and pour boiling lead down your throats. I will heat the poker red hot and make you swallow it; I will take the skin off you with a file, that I will, sacr-rr-rr-rr-rr-rr-é.'

'Where is Adolphe?' asked madame.

'Alas! the good Adolphe is at the point of death.'

'What! here?'

'No, madame, he is no longer in M. Berthier's service.'

'In whose service is he, then?'

'In that of your most illustrious father.'

'Pray, when did he change his place?'

'About a month ago, madame.'

'And what is the matter with him now?'

'Alas! he is dying of a fever. I am desolated with grief; but what can one do? He is young; he is ten years younger than myself. I am tough, and strong, and wiry, and leathery. Ah! let a fever dare attack me. I will not yield to it. Madame, it is my belief that people die of diseases because they have not the pluck to fight against them. As I said to Adolphe, "Resist, man, resist; don't yield to the nasty insidious complaint; refuse to admit that you are ill; say to yourself, I never was better in my life. Shower contempt on the fever, spit upon it—and it will flee from you." But Adolphe is a poor fellow, he has no spirit; I could not stimulate his resolution, he yielded at once; and then, of course, the disorder obtained the mastery. Why, madame, suppose I were to succumb to these hounds; suppose I were to run away the moment they leap against me; suppose I were to scream out when they bark; they would fall on me and mangle me, and tear my throat and suck my blood. But I resist them, I threaten them, I cast ferocious glances at them, I swell with wrath against them; I arm myself with a redoubtable whip, and they slink before me into the kennels. See!'

Gustave dived into his lodge and rushed from it in another moment armed with a whip like a Russian knout.

Charging with blazing eyes, whirling his scourge above his head, and thundering forth exclamations of rage, and threats of horrible tortures in store for the hounds, he sent them flying to their holes with their tails between their legs.

'See, madame!' he exclaimed; 'that is the way to treat disease. Rush out upon it, throw yourself into a paroxysm of rage; curse, swear and blaspheme! It is better than ten thousand pills, powders, and draughts, provided by twenty millions of doctors.'

'When was M. Berthier here last?' asked madame.

'On Sunday, he has not returned since; and indeed,' he added, with some hesitation, 'I fear that it would hardly be safe for him to show himself in Paris at present. You will excuse me, madame, for hinting this.'

'Why not safe?' asked the poor woman; 'do others hate him as much as I do?'

'I fear that monsieur is not popular with the Parisians. They are flushed with victory, and incensed against my master. The mob has already assembled once or twice before the house, but I have assured them that he is at Versailles, and they have retired. But their attitude was threatening. I only wish I had had a few soldiers here, and we should have bayoneted them all the way up the street, and fed the dogs for weeks afterwards on their carcases. Ah, ha! Pigeon, Poulet! how you would have danced to taste man-meat, to lick up human blood! You would want some taking down afterwards to bring you to proper obedience! Sapristi! that you would!'

'Madame,' said Gabrielle, 'if Monsieur Berthier is unlikely to return here, let me remain with you for a few days.'

'Are you sure he will not venture here?' asked the lady of Gustave.

'See, my good mistress,' replied the man, drawing her into his lodge, and leading her to the window; 'will you do me the favour of looking out, and turning your head a little to the left?'

'Well,' answered she, when she had complied with his request; 'I see nothing remarkable.'

'No, madame; but you see a plaster-cast dealer at the corner?'

'Yes, I do; but what of that?'

'In half an hour his place will be taken by a seller of quack medicines, and that man will remain there till dusk. As soon as the bell goes at six, a man in a white blouse with his hands in his pockets will take the doctor's place, and will pace up and down till midnight, when he will disappear, and another man will occupy the same post. At day-break there will be a colporteur selling pamphlets.'

'And what does that mean?'

'It means, madame, that a strict watch is kept upon the house; and that, if monsieur were to return, it would be reported all over the town. I think I know the faces of some of these sentinels. The plaster-cast dealer lost his betrothed some few years ago. I need not tell you, madame, what had become of her, and the man found out and vowed vengeance on the Intendant, for which threat he was imprisoned. The quack doctor's little daughter was supposed by many to have been decoyed into this house. Anyhow she disappeared, and the father came here to make inquiries. I had orders to turn the dogs loose upon him. I do not know the other men. The colporteur's face I think I have seen at Bernay, but I cannot be sure.'

Madame Berthier laughed and danced round the yard.

'This is charming!' she cried; 'others are after the Beast. We will hunt him down, shall we not, Pigeon, dearest; shall we not, my treasure of a Poulet?' Then whirling up to Gabrielle, she caught her in her arms and said, 'Yes, stay here now with me; he dare not come to the house, or, if he does, I will deliver him over to the dogs and the men, and they will tear him in pieces.'

'Will you allow me, dear mistress, to run home to Madame Deschwanden's, and bring a few of my things?'

'Certainly,' answered the crazy lady; 'but be quick, for I have many things to show you and my seraph Gabriel. And I will keep his curiosity on the stretch till you return.'

Events of importance had followed the capture of the Bastille. The National Assembly sent a deputation, consisting of Bailly, Lafayette, the Archbishop of Paris, and the stout half-Irish Lally-Tolendal, to the Hôtel de Ville to announce the reconciliation effected with the king. Their presence caused the liveliest joy; and the electors proceeded to confer on Lafayette the command of the national guard, as they now called the newly-organized militia, and to choose Bailly to be Mayor of Paris in the place of the unfortunate Flesselles.

Whereupon a Te Deum was voted; and the multitude of French guards, soldiers of the line, and militia, together with a crowd of citizens, marched to Notre-Dame, where the ceremony was performed with due splendour.

The city had settled down into something like calm. The barricades were not removed, nor did the sentries cease to pace their distance. The feverish excitement had subsided, but anxiety still remained dominant. Would the king suffer the forty thousand men round Paris to remain inactive, and make no attempt to punish those who had broken open his fortress? In spite of the royal promise that the troops should be withdrawn, they remained at their posts.

The court, which had at first refused to believe in the fall of the Bastille, when all doubt of the fact disappeared, made light of the circumstance, for they trusted in a few hours to recapture the citadel. But when the king, obstinate for once in his life, refused all solicitations to employ force, then they felt that their hopes were at an end, and the Count d'Artois, the Condés, the Contis, the Polignacs, Vaudreuil, De Broglie, the Prince de Lambesc and others, absconded from France. Necker had left the Polignacs in power at Versailles; they were the first to announce to him at Basle the ruin and dispersion of the three days' ministry. De Breteuil hung on a few days longer, and then emigrated, to act as Louis XVIth's secret minister at foreign courts. Berthier was nowhere to be found, and with him had disappeared all the officers charged with the administration of provisions. Foulon was reported to be sick to death, poisoned by his own hand, in his stately mansion in the Rue du Temple.

Gabrielle was sitting one morning with Madame Plomb in the window, and the poor woman had recurred to her dream of a flight to the land of rocks and mountains.

'You know that it is a promise,' said she; 'you assured me that when I escaped from that hateful prison, I should go to the place where I was when a child.'

'But where was it?' asked Gabrielle.

'That I cannot say distinctly. I remember the mountains glittering with snow, and the roar of the falling torrents. I remember the blue lakes——'

'Dear madame,' said Gabrielle, interrupting her, 'your words remind me of what Nicholas and the corporal are continually repeating. You must mean Switzerland.'

'I am not certain,' answered Madame Berthier. 'There are so many mountains in the world. We have ranges of snowy peaks in the south and in the east, and there are the mountains of Auvergne. How can I say that it was not the Pyrenees or the mountains of Dauphiné that I remember?—Why are you blushing, child?' This was asked abruptly as Gabrielle drew her face from the window, and looked down at the needlework on which she was engaged.

Directly after a servant announced that there was some one at the door who wanted to speak to Mademoiselle André.

'Show him up here,' said madame. 'Do not stir from your seat, Gabrielle. I must see what it was that made you blush.'

The door immediately opened to admit Nicholas, who on entering stood shyly, hat in one hand, and a little statuette in the other.

He looked first at Gabrielle and then at Madame Plomb, with his large eyes full of bewilderment.

The leaden lady smiled.

'Is this the M. Nicholas of whom you so often speak?' she asked.

Gabrielle became crimson. Nicholas at the same moment radiated joy and nodded to the girl.

'This is the M. Nicholas Deschwanden who can tell you all about his land of mountains and lakes,' she said.

'That is capital,' exclaimed the lady. 'Sit down, young man, and tell me all about Switzerland.'

'Ah! good madame, how could I tell you all in one breath? Switzerland would take a lifetime to describe. And again, what description can adequately express its glories?'

'You have snowy mountains there,' said madame.

'Snowy mountains!' echoed Nicholas, his eyes lighting up. 'Oh! if you could but see them, standing half way up the sky, with their bases lost in blue shadows, and the evening glow—the Alpenglüth, we call it—upon their heads. Madame, since I have been in Paris, I have met some philosophers who deny all those things which I have been taught to believe. I have heard them pronounce Heaven and Paradise to be a fable; but no one looking at our Alps of an evening could doubt in Heaven and Paradise; they are a Revelation,—a witness of a better life and a better country. I am clumsy to express myself, but I feel it there,' and he laid his hand on his heart. 'Ah! good madame, it is a wonderful sight to behold the golden crimson light fade off the snow, and then there steals over the icy peaks a greyness like death, a ghastly chill that lasts for a few moments, as though they knew that they were not eternal.'

'And the lakes,' said Madame Berthier. 'I remember one as blue as heaven, with white water-lilies on it.'

'Was it a pond in France?' asked Nicholas, looking at Gabrielle.

'No. I have been among mountains and lakes.'

'Have you been in Switzerland?' asked Nicholas, eagerly.

'I do not know. I remember when I was a little child that I was in a beautiful land; but whether it was Switzerland or not I cannot tell.'

'We have such lakes,' said Nicholas; 'little heavens lying among the rough mountains, like still souls, such as that of Gabrielle, amongst the wild spirits surrounding them. There are water-lilies on our Sarnen See. But that is not equal to the lake of the Four Cantons, shaped like a cross, and the Catholic cantons cling around it lovingly.'

'Are you not all Catholics in Switzerland?' asked Madame Berthier.

'No,' answered the young man, sadly. 'Some of the cantons are Protestant. Oh, madame, is not that sad? and in those parts you cannot travel without tears. Love, faith, religion, are dead. Above the Lake of Thun, on the edge of a precipice, is a little cave in which lived a thousand years ago a blessed hermit.'

'Not Bruder Klaus, surely,' said Gabrielle.

'Bruder Klaus! no. It was the blessed Beatus. He was a British missionary, and he converted all that portion of Switzerland. I have visited his cave. From the mouth you can look over the beautiful lake to the snowy heads of the Jung-Frau, the Mönch, and the Eiger. Oh! the scene is so lovely. But no pilgrims visit the cave; the people around have forgotten their benefactor along with the faith he taught them. It is sad. I wept in that cave, and prayed for the re-conversion of those cantons which had fallen into heresy.'

His bright, honest face became clouded with sorrow.

Madame Berthier looked at it, smiled, and changed the subject.

'What is that little statuette in your hand?'

The lad coloured, and extended it to her.

'If you please, madame, I bought it for Mademoiselle André. It seemed to me so long since she left our house, and yet it is only three days, and I was sure that she wanted something, but I could not exactly tell what. I thought about it all day. I felt a voice within me say, "Gabrielle has need of something, you must take it to her." I felt impelled to come here, but I did not know for what purpose. At last it flashed across my mind that she must desire a little image of the Blessed Virgin for her devotions.'

'In other words,' said the lady, 'you felt miserable without Gabrielle, and hunted about for an excuse to come here?'

Nicholas stared at her. This was a new light in which to view his sensations. There might be some truth in it, he admitted to himself, and then his eyes fell.

'Oh, madame,' said he, 'you should see our beautiful lake of the Four Cantons. There is not a promontory that does not end in a little white chapel with a red roof, containing a sacred figure; there is not a rock jutting out of the water which has not its tiny shrine upon it. Oh! it is so pretty, so religious, so happy! I remember one just opposite the arm of the lake that points towards the south, it stands almost on the blue water, a white sunny speck, and when you row up to it you find it to be an arcaded niche, enshrining a statue of S. Nicolas von der Flue, the hermit, in his brown serge habit, staff in hand, with his sad, pale, earnest face looking out towards the hazy ridge, on the flank of which he dwelt so many years in prayer and fasting. And as you near the next prong of rock thrust out of the waves, you see a bower of hazels, in which snuggles another tiny chapel, open only to the water, overhung by a bush of flowering elder, with braids of crimson wild rose wavering against the white walls, and blue salvia and pink willow-herb clustering about the sides; whilst before the statue of the Blessed Virgin bearing her Child, that it contains, the sparkling ripples incessantly bow and whisper their litanies.'

'How beautiful!' exclaimed Madame Berthier; 'I must ask my father whether it was Switzerland that I remember.'

'Your father!' repeated Nicholas, looking blank; 'what can you mean, madame? do you not know——?'

'Know what?'

Nicholas looked at Gabrielle, and signed that he wished to say something to her in private.

'What do you mean?' again asked Madame Berthier.

'May I say a few words to Gabrielle first, outside the door?'

'By all means,' answered the poor lady, laughing.

The girl hesitated, but Nicholas winked and nodded to her, and contrived to express by cabalistic signs the importance of the communication he desired to make.

This did not reassure Gabrielle, who hung back more reluctantly than before; but her mistress insisted on her following Nicholas, and the young man, taking her arm, drew her into the passage.

'What is it, Nicholas?' she asked; 'I wish you would not be so mysterious. You quite frighten me.'

'Do not be angry, my dear friend,' he replied, 'it is about that poor unhappy lady I want to speak to you. I expected to find you alone here.'

'Then why did you come?' asked Gabrielle.

'I did not know that there was a prospect of finding you alone when I started,' pursued Nicholas; 'but I heard that M. Foulon was dead. Dreadful! it is reported that he poisoned himself, but that may be only a report and worthless. As I came here, I passed the funeral procession.'

'But, Nicholas, my mistress knows nothing of this.'

'How strange! She is his daughter. Has she not been told that her father is dead?'

'No. She did not know of his illness.'

'That is wonderful,' said the young man. 'But possibly the family were not aware that she had left the Bastille.'

'They must surely have known that.'

'Anyhow,' continued Nicholas, 'I saw the funeral on its way through the Rue S. Honoré to the church of S. Rocque. The cortège is splendid, and is passing through all the most important streets. Several carriages follow the hearse. No expense seems to have been spared.'

'Are you sure of this, Nicholas?'

'Perfectly,' answered the young man; 'I went myself to the mansion in the Rue du Temple, where the entrance-doorway was converted into a chapelle ardente, hung with black and adorned with the armorial bearings of the deceased.'

'What is to be done?' exclaimed Gabrielle.

'I think you ought to tell madame. I was dismayed when I entered and found her here. I cannot understand it. I will wait whilst you inform her. I will remain outside. Go in, Gabrielle.'

'I dare not.'

'Why not?' asked madame from within. 'I have heard all. You foolish children; you should speak lower. I am quick of hearing. My father dead! My father being buried! Well! I will attend his funeral, though not invited. Perhaps Berthier is there, and has kept the secret from me. Alas! I do not love my father, but I am sorry that he is dead. Come, my children, let us go to the church; I must see him once more.' She threw her bonnet and veil upon her head and prepared to sally forth.

'You see I am always in mourning,—always ready for a death. The cat cannot come. He is in too gay a costume. He must be put in trappings of woe when we return.'

On her way to S. Rocque, the poor woman became very excited, having convinced herself that Berthier had purposely kept her in ignorance of her father's death, and she turned first to Gabrielle and then to Nicholas to denounce him. By the time she had reached the railing before the flight of steps leading to the church, she had worked herself into a fit of madness.

The street was packed with spectators, who observed a sullen silence. Foulon was intensely and implacably hated, and he had been given over at the Palais Royal, by the popular orators, to the vengeance of the Parisians. The starving people, who during the last few days had suffered severely owing to an increasing deficiency of supplies, could not forget that this man had been one of the greatest farmers of the revenue, had made an enormous fortune out of the compact of famine, and had throughout his life been callous to the distress of the poor. His speech at Bernay, 'Wait till I am minister, then the people shall eat hay, my horses eat it,' had been repeated in the capital.

If Foulon had appeared in the streets alive, surrounded by a troop of soldiers, the exasperated mob would have burst through the iron ring and have strangled the life out of him. Now he was dead, they respected his body.

Madame Berthier, observing the crowd outside of the church, turned to those nearest her, and asked,—

'Have you come to see my father buried? I am his daughter, and they never told me of his death. But that was Berthier's doing.'

No one answered her except with scowls.

'Let me pass,' said she to the Suisse at the gate; 'do you know that my father is being buried, and I was not told that he was ill or dead? Was not that cruel? Not that I loved him much. How could I? He never loved me. But I want to see him. Let me pass, good man.'

She was admitted, and mounted some of the steps. At that moment the coffin was borne out of the door, over which black drapery strewn with little silver flames had been suspended.

Her position in comparative isolation before the gloomy trappings and the coffin and mutes on one side, and the mob of spectators on the other, excited Madame Berthier's brain, and springing to the platform on which the body of her father rested, she turned to the people and addressed them, throwing up her veil at the same moment, and displaying her hideous leaden face.

The vision produced a murmur of horror and disgust.

'Ah ha! good souls,' she screamed; 'pray for the unfortunate. Did you love the dead? Answer me.'

There was no response for some moments. She repeated her question, and then one man shouted: 'Does the corn love the wheel which turns on it and crushes it? No, we hate him.'

A groan of rage and detestation was then the general reply.

'Well,' said Madame Berthier, 'I do not care for him. I did not love him, and I do not love him now. He treated me very badly; he mocked me for my leaden looks, and bade me buy love, as I could not win it with my beauty. Will such jests make a child love her parents? Yet I do not hate him; I keep all my hate for my husband. Do you know Berthier de Sauvigny?'

The answer was a roar.

'He is my husband. Ah ha! you hate him, do you?'

'Hate him as we hate hell,' was bellowed.

'Do you hate him more than I do?'

'Ten times more.'

'No, that is impossible. You may kill him, you may bury him, and I will dance over his grave. He shut me into the Bastille, and kept me there a prisoner. Ah! poor father,' she cried, reverting to the coffin; 'ah! you shall be prayed for after death, for you have much to answer for that you committed in life.' She wheeled round to the mob, extended her arms, and cried: 'You are good, you Parisians. When my father and my husband shut me up in that terrible dungeon, you came and tore it down and liberated me. Foulon has wronged you. But he has gone to his account. Pray for the unfortunate!'

She raised her hands above her head, and began to dance with small steps on the pavement-stone on which she stood, without leaving it. All at once she burst into a peal of laughter and exclaimed: 'Do you know, good Parisians, what I did to Berthier?'

Some of the officials of the church and those belonging to the undertaker, advanced to remove her. But the crowd were in the humour to listen to her and to observe her, and they shouted to them to touch the lady at their peril.

'Do you know, good people, what I did?' she asked again. 'No, you cannot guess. He came to visit me in my cell, and I cast my yellow angel—my cat, into his face, and it tore him. I saw the streaks of blood. Ah ha! I hate him.' She knit her hands; her eyes glared like those of a tigress, she became rigid in every limb. 'Promise me, good people, if you find him, you will kill him. Hang him to the lantern, and make him blue like me. I have seen a dead man dangling from a beam—and his face was like mine. Let Berthier become M. Plomb. Promise me not to spare him—swear to me.'

The answer was thundered by several thousand voices—'We swear.'

'Will you curse him? See!' she ran to the church door and tore down a long strip of crape powdered with silver flames, and threw it over her like a cope—'See!' she cried, 'I will be your priestess, leading your curses and your prayers. Curse for me, Berthier de Sauvigny!' She lifted one arm. Her bonnet had fallen, and her ash-grey hair fell wildly about her flame-strewn vestment, which she held about her with her other hand. 'Curse him wherever he be. Cry out anathema!' She mounted the bier, and stood before the coffin. 'Curse him waking, and curse him sleeping.'

The people, falling in with her mad humour, or carried away by the wildness of the scene and her actions, responded,—

'Anathema!'

'Curse him eating, and curse him drinking.'

'Anathema!'

'Curse him in his moments of laughter and mirth, and in his times of sorrow and fears.'

'Anathema!'

'Curse him when he is flying from his enemies. Shut the way about him with curses, that he cannot escape.'

'Anathema!'

'Blind his eyes, that he may not see clearly whither to flee.'

'Anathema!'

'Stop his ears to good advice, and open them only to that which is evil, to the counsel of Ahitophel.'

'Anathema!'

'Curse his hands, that they may fail him in the last struggle for life.'

And the people roared 'Anathema!'

'Curse his feet, that they may fail him when he turns to fly.'

'Anathema!'

'And now,' she continued, lowering her arm and descending from the bier, 'you are good, pray for the unfortunate.' She placed herself before the coffin, faced it, and extending both her arms like a priest at the beginning of the Credo, she cried, 'Pray for the dead, that his sins may be blotted out, and his iniquities be forgiven, Miserere!' The versatile crowd responded, falling on their knees:—

'Miserere!'

'Eternal rest give to him, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon him!'

'Miserere!'

'I must see his face,' said Madame Berthier, casting aside the black crape and throwing the pall from the coffin. 'I must see my father once more; and I must give him his last kiss. Open the coffin.'

Again the officers interposed; but the poor woman would listen to no reason. 'Berthier in his malice would not tell me that my father was dying, he did not announce to me his death, lest I should kiss him. Let me take my last look, my last kiss. I insist. Have I not a right, do I not draw my blood from his veins? Why am I not to see him?'

She was thrust aside by some of the undertaker's officials with some violence; but the mad creature was as resolute as were they. She turned to the people and appealed to them for help. 'They will not let me see my father. They kept me from his bedside when he was ill; they held from me the news that he was dead; and now they refuse me a last look, and a last kiss. Help, good people! you, who set me at liberty when I was locked up in the Bastille; you will not suffer these hirelings to stand between a daughter and her father!'

The appeal was not made in vain; the Suisse at the gate was thrown down, and the mob poured up the steps to the assistance of the poor lady. In the meantime, an attempt was made to remove the coffin into the church, but a sturdy butcher intercepted his body between it and the door, and frustrated the attempt.

A ring was formed around Madame Berthier and the coffin, and it was observed that several of the mourners immediately decamped with precipitation.

On the coffin was a silver plate, inscribed with the name of Foulon, and a list of the offices he had held, that of minister during the eventful three days, not being omitted.

'Open the coffin for me, good people. You shall see my father. He is not very terrible now.'

'A turnscrew,' was called from man to man; and presently one was produced, and the coffin-lid was slowly and laboriously removed.

'Now,' said Madame Berthier, taking hold of the napkin spread over the face of the deceased, 'I bid you all look with me on the countenance of my poor father. He was a bad man, I allow, and a hard man upon the poor, but then, he is dead now, and has gone to his account. You have prayed God to have mercy on his soul; I am sure when you see his dead face that you will be prepared to bury your resentment in his grave. Behold!' she drew the napkin aside, looked on the face of the corpse, started back, uttering a cry of dismay:—

'This is not my father! This is poor Adolphe!'

The crowd pressed forward and stared long at the dead man, satisfying themselves of the deception. Not a word was spoken, not a murmur arose. All pushed up to the corpse, gazed on it, and then looked into the eyes of those around them.

'My father is still alive!' exclaimed madame. 'Praised be God.'

'Madame,' said a man into her ear, 'before the week is out he will be dead.'

---

CHAPTER XXXV.

Berthier had fled in the direction of Belgium, on foot; travelling by night, hiding in barns or in clumps of trees by day. He had passed two nights without sleeping. At Senlis he was recognised by a baker from whom he bought a loaf; but, by the time the news had become public, he had disappeared. A courier was immediately despatched to Paris with the announcement that Berthier was in the neighbourhood; and the magistrates asked instructions as to their conduct, should he be brought before them. The following evening after dusk, the fugitive entered a small tavern by the road-side, near Compiègne, and asked for supper. He was much altered since he had left Paris. Sleepless nights and anxious days had deprived his complexion of colour, and had reduced it to a pasty hue. His large cheeks hung limp, his red lips had turned purple. His hair, undressed and disordered, held particles of hay and straw entangled in it. A large, broad-brimmed hat covered his brow, and was drawn over his eyes, which troubled him more than heretofore. He held his stained handkerchief between his fingers, he had washed it in a stream by the road-side; it was not thoroughly dry.

The tavern was lighted by a resin candle in a holdfast attached to the jamb of the fireplace, it spluttered and guttered upon the hearth and yielded an uncertain light.

The proprietor of this house of refreshment sat upon a bench outside his door, conversing with a couple of peasants, and smoking a pipe; whilst the wife, a little shrivelled-up old woman, with a handkerchief tied round her head and knotted behind, bustled about the kitchen preparing soup and stew with the assistance of a flat-faced, radiant girl, who tumbled about as though walking on skates, and never stood upright.

M. Berthier requested to have his food served separately at the end of the long table. He did not remove his hat, but sat with his hand to his brow and his elbow on the table.

Presently the flat-faced girl rolled and staggered in with a bowl of potage for each of the guests,—the usual very thin broth in which float scraps of untoasted bread, and the surface dotted with globules of oil, with which foot travellers in France must be familiar. Then the little dried-up woman ran to the door and called imperiously to the three men outside, 'Come on, come on, the potage is served;' whereupon they clattered in, in their sabots, and fell like sacks into their places.

'There you are, sir,' said the wizen hostess, thrusting a bowl of potage before the ex-intendant; 'you will find it superb.'

'The day has been hot and the sun scorching; I have walked far,' said Berthier, wearily.

'From what place does monsieur come?'

'Never mind,' answered Berthier angrily, 'I am too hungry to answer questions; if you answer one that a woman makes, you must answer a thousand.'

The old woman retired muttering.

The peasants, between their spoonfuls of soup, continued the conversation in which they had been engaged outside the door.

'He has not been captured yet?' asked one of the men.

'No, Pierre; but he was seen at Senlis. Do you know that baker, named Michaud, in the square before Notre Dame, at the corner? Well, he went in there to buy a brioche, and the good man knew him; he had seen him when he superintended the buying of the corn in Artois. He did not say much then; he just mentioned it to some of his acquaintances, and they spread the news through the city. But the magistrates do nothing.'

'Why should they, Jean?' asked the other; 'hawks do not prey on hawks, and you will not find magistrates over-zealous in bringing other magistrates to book.'

'And which direction do you think he has taken now?'

'I expect he is on his way to Clermont, and so by Amiens to Lille.'

'Who will arrest him, Pierre?'

'Who but the people?'

'And is he so very bad?'

'He is one of the famine-mongers,' answered Pierre; 'he has made a vast fortune out of speculations in corn. He is a man who has fattened on our misery. He was one who sought to drive the king to massacre his people. He supplied the troops with an incredible number of cartridges, with which he designed that the canaille of Paris should be swept away.'

'And if they catch him, Pierre, what will they do with him?'

The other shrugged his shoulders.

'For my part,' said the innkeeper, 'I don't like popular judgments. Let us have criminals tried by the proper courts.'

'But how so, when the judges are the culprits?'

'I don't like it,' repeated the host.

'Suppose the innkeepers all sold bad wine, and the wine-drinkers rose in a body and produced a notorious adulterator of grape-juice, would they be satisfied with the judgment upon him pronounced by a committee of peculating taverners, eh?'

'You won't make me like it,' said the host, slapping the table.

'He might get to Lille this way, might he not?' asked Jean.

'Ay, he might. And he could hide about in the forest, waiting his opportunity to escape with facility.'

'I doubt if he could be caught if he hid away in the forest.'

'No, they could not catch him, unless they had dogs.'

'What, hunt him with dogs, like a deer!'

'Ay, with bloodhounds.'

Berthier rose from his seat, and laid a piece of silver on the table.

'Where are you going?' asked the little hostess.

'I cannot eat any more,' answered he; 'the soup is thin, the cooking is execrable. Here, take this, I must be off.'

He drew the hat farther over his eyes, and made towards the door. The old woman caught the resin flambeau from its holdfast, and running before him, threw the light into his face.

'Do you say my potage is thin,—is execrable? You did not see the beaux yeux (the oily globules), you did not taste them—no! execrable!'

Berthier brushed past her and went out, muttering a curse.

'Ah!' shrieked the indignant lady after him, 'you despise my potage, you do not admire the beautiful eyes of fat floating on its superb surface. I don't admire your eyes, neither, I tell you. I don't admire eyes set in red-hot sockets. Eyes, indeed! you're a nice choice personage to pour contempt on the magnificent eyes in my potage.' Then, turning to the peasants, she appealed to them. 'I will ask you, gentlemen, to observe your soup. Are there eyes on it; in abundance, eh? or are they scarce, eh? Does the potage taste execrable? does it look execrable? does it smell execrable?'

'Who is that fellow?' asked Pierre.

'Who is he?' repeated the hostess; 'Mon Dieu, how do I know? Do you think I care? do you think I shall concern myself for one instant about a ragamuffin who is so ill bred as to despise my potage; who sees no eyes in my soup; who tastes none; who nevertheless—' she looked into Berthier's bowl; 'who nevertheless has eaten it all up, and not left a sippet of bread behind for the cat?'

'What did you say about his eyes, madame?' asked Pierre.

'What did I say?' repeated the old woman; 'I said that he was not the man to criticise my eyes.'

'But what of his own?'

'What of his own!' echoed the hostess; 'if they were half as superb as those in my potage, he might be thankful, and offer votive wax ones at Notre Dame de Bon-secours. Ah! I have known sore eyes healed there. There was little Babelou, Pernette's daughter. The lids were closed about them like those of a young puppy, and so inflamed. It pierced the heart to see them, and they vowed to Notre Dame and took the child there, and she came back healed.'

'But what about the stranger's eyes? Were they sore?'

'Were they sore?' retorted the old woman. 'Do you call that sore when the eyeball is set in a ring of red? Is one with eyes such as that a fit person to talk of thin soup, of deficient eyes in the potage, of——'

Pierre sprang up with a howl like that wherewith the dog greets the moon.

'It is Berthier,' he yelled; 'follow me, Jean. Leave your clogs here;' and he kicked his wooden shoes under the table.

'Give us a glass to stimulate us for the run, host! Now, Jean, come along. Sapristi! if we catch him, it will be better than a thousand suppers.'

In the meantime, the unfortunate Berthier was running along the road. He was weary, and faint from want of food, and could not run fast, or for long.

The night had set in; along the west lay a belt of light, white and ghastly, where the sun had gone down; and over head a few stars looked out. To his right lay a mass of blackness, which he supposed to be the forest of Compiègne. He passed a solitary church surrounded by the dead, and a light burning in the grave-yard to scare away witches and fiends. He seated himself on the steps before the cross at the gate of the cemetery, and felt for his handkerchief to wipe the perspiration from his brow. But it was not in his pocket. He remembered to have placed it on his knee when he sat at supper. Doubtless he had dropped it under the table in the tavern.

The tramp of running feet approached, and in fear he sprang up and recommenced his flight.

Pierre and Jean shouted, but he did not answer. His face swam with perspiration, and he smeared it over his cheeks with his cuff, as he tried to wipe them. He strained every nerve to run, setting his teeth; the wind whistled through them as he drew his breath. He stood still, unable to continue his flight, without a break for recovering his wind. His breast laboured. His brain was on fire, and his heart beat violently. The temples throbbed as though a hammer were striking on them. The measured tread of the runners drew nearer; and for a minute Berthier could not run. But just as they hove in sight through the darkness, he bounded forward, and attempted to leap a gate at the road-side opening into a field, but which was fastened. He fell, unable to clear it, and in falling sprained his foot. In another moment the peasants would be upon him. His only resource was to roll into the ditch, half full of water, and overhung with briars at the side.

'He has made for the wood!' shouted Jean.

'Sacré! we must be quick, or we shall miss him!'

Berthier heard both the men climb the gate.

'I know he has gone this way,' said Jean; 'I heard the rattle of the bar as he touched it.'

'Over with you,' shouted Pierre; and both jumped into the field and ran across it.

Berthier heard their calls becoming more distant. He remained immersed in mire, shivering with fear, till they returned, cursing their ill luck.

'Once in the woods he may elude a thousand,' said Pierre, as he climbed the gate on his way back.

'What is to be done now?'

'We must on to Compiègne, and announce to the people there that he is in the forest.'

'Sapristi! I wish I had my wooden shoes.'

'I wish we had not missed him; and all through old mother Picou's gossiping magpie tongue.'

Berthier listened as the two men retired, and then he slowly raised himself from the ditch into which he had rolled. Fagged, with his ankle strained, he felt unequal to a long flight; his only chance lay in being able to escape the vigilance of an aroused peasantry in some nook of the forest.

He therefore pursued the road till it entered the gloom of the trees, when he made for the first gap in the hedge, and dived into the pitch blackness beneath the foliage.

He groped his way along, resting occasionally, and then starting up and pushing forward in his fear. Sometimes the rush of birds rising from their perches among the boughs startled him, and sent the blood to his heart. A wild cat hissed and a night-hawk screamed. Some animal stole past him through the underwood; what it was, Berthier could not guess, but the rustle in the leaves produced by its movements filled him with fear.

He came out upon a path, and was frightened to see a phosphorescent line drawn along it. Wood-cutters had been removing old decayed timber during the day, and the traces were luminous at night.

Hearing a dog begin to bark furiously, he conjectured that he was approaching a farm, so he turned into the woods again. Taking the pole-star as his guide,—he could distinguish it occasionally through the branches overhead, he struck due east, wading through fern. Sometimes he caught his feet in the brambles, sometimes he stumbled over tree-roots or fallen boughs, and fell upon his face.

The ground rose and he mounted a hill, then descended into a valley, mounted another rise and went down into a hollow, where a sheet of water reflected the sky and the trees. In the surface he saw the lightening of the dawn reflected. He bathed his face and hands, and then crept under an oak with his eyes towards the east, waiting for morning to break and the sun to return.

At last the day awoke, and with it the birds, the insects, and the church bell.

The wretched man fell asleep, and did not open his eyes again till past nine. He was refreshed, but stiff and hungry. The place where he was seemed to him too exposed, and he crawled away into the dell under a mat of bracken.

Towards noon his hunger became intolerable, and he deserted his place of concealment, and crept cautiously through the wood, looking for—he knew not what. Presently he came upon a broad path, and in it he saw a priest pacing slowly along reading his breviary.

Berthier hesitated whether to show himself, but a cracking branch against which he leaned attracted the curé's attention, and he directed his eyes towards the point where the fugitive stood. Seeing that he was discovered, the intendant came forward, and presented himself before the priest.

'Who are you?' asked the curé with some surprise.

'Never mind who I am,' answered the unfortunate man; 'I am pursued by bloodthirsty ruffians, my life is sought, and I am obliged to hide. That is enough for you to know. Take my purse, and, for the love of Heaven, bring me some food.'

The priest looked at him with interest and compassion.

'I will assist you,' he said; 'keep your money, you may want it. Who you are I can guess. I will bring you a loaf and leave it behind that sycamore, but do not show yourself again. You must remain concealed in the forest for a few days, and each day you shall find food at the foot of the tree I indicated. When it is safe for you to fly, I will give you notice. Hist!'

Berthier heard shouts; he turned and escaped into his former hiding-place.

The priest resumed his recitation of Sext with the utmost composure, and continued his walk.

Shortly after a troop of peasants, armed with scythes and pitchforks, rushed down the road, chattering, and fired with excitement.

They touched their caps to the curé, who removed his shovel hat and bowed low, without, however, withdrawing his eyes from the book.

'Eh, well! Michel,' said one of the peasants; 'what will you do tearing on in that style? Let me ask Monsieur le Curé if he has seen the fellow.'

The priest continued murmuring his psalms:—

'Fac cum servo tuo secundum misericordiam tuam: et justificationes tuas doce me. Eh! what now, Vacherot?'

'Has Monsieur le Curé seen a man about here?'

'What sort of a man?'

'The fellow is M. Berthier, the ex-intendant of Paris, and he is flying the country.'

'What do you want with him? let him fly.'

'It will not do to suffer him to escape, Monsieur le Curé. Have you seen him?'

'All I can answer you is, that he has not gone this way;' and the curé's forefinger pointed up his sleeve.

'We will hunt elsewhere,' said the peasant. 'Come along, Michel.' And in another moment the rustics were out of sight.

For two days the search was maintained; but Berthier succeeded in eluding his pursuers. He found bread and meat and wine every morning at the place indicated. On the third morning a scrap of paper was attached to the loaf, with the inscription traced on it in pencil, 'Fly east, the pursuit has abated.'

In fact, the country people, tired of wasting their time without a prospect of remuneration, and beginning to disbelieve the report given by Pierre and Jean, returned to their agricultural labours. But Nemesis was at hand.

Directly it was known in Paris that Berthier had been seen at Senlis, his wife started in her light carriage, taking with her the two hounds, Pigeon and Poulet, and accompanied by one of the electors, M. de la Rivière.

At Senlis it was reported that Berthier had been seen in the neighbourhood of Compiègne. At the tavern where he supped, Pierre and Jean and the hostess described his person to the elector.

'It is he,' cried madame; 'we are on the track. You saw his eyes, then, good woman?'

'I saw them plain enough,' she answered; 'I don't want to see them again.'

'And do you know what I want to do?' asked the crazy lady; 'I want to shut them for ever.'

'Which direction did he take?' asked M. de la Rivière.

'He fled into the forest.'

'How long ago?'

'Three nights.'

'Has the forest been searched?'

'We have done our best; but how can fifty thousand acres be thoroughly searched? We want dogs.'

'Here they are,' exclaimed madame, joyously. 'Now, Poulet, and you, Pigeon, you shall have a glorious chase after the wild beast. You shall go straight as arrows after him; you shall track him in all his wanderings, and you shall fall on him and pin him to the ground. Ah! I wish I had brought something of the Beast's here for the hounds to sniff at, to let them know what they are to chase.'

'Madame,' said the little hostess, 'the fellow dropped his handkerchief under my table, when he called my cooking execrable.'

'Bring it here,' ordered the mad woman.

'Yes, that is his!' she cried, when the discoloured kerchief was shown her. 'It is his blood,—faugh! I know its look, I know its colour, I know its scent. Give it to me.'

'Hold, madame,' interposed Pierre; 'let us conduct the dogs to the entrance of the forest.'

We must go back to Berthier, who seated himself in his thicket when he had read the note, and consumed the food provided for him by the priest. The wretched man felt, for the first time since he left Versailles, relief from the agony of suspense. In a few days, if he could only reach the frontier, he would be safe; and every day that took him farther from the capital diminished the probability of his capture.

'Here, then,' said Berthier, tossing off the last drop of the wine, 'here's to my safe escape into Belgium. That priest has been a good fellow; I have a mind to leave some gold in his bottle, as a return for his kindness.' He looked into his well-furnished purse. 'No,' he said; 'I shall want all myself, if I have to remain long in a foreign land. The curé must do without.' Then rising, he threw the poor priest's bottle away, stretched himself, and began stealthily to advance eastward.

He had not taken a step forward, before he heard the baying of some hounds. The note was peculiar, and was familiar to Berthier. His pale face became white as clay.

'My God!' he groaned; 'can it be!'

He began to run, tearing the branches apart, and crashing through the fern.

The baying approached. He uttered a cry of terror, and throwing aside his cloak ran at his utmost speed. Breaking into a forest path, he raced along that. His hat came off, but he disregarded it in the delirium of terror. The scent of burning wood entered his nostrils without being observed; he sped past a charcoal-burner's heap without noticing it. The man attending the fire sprang up and shouted. Berthier turned his head, and saw two hounds leap out of the wood and bound along the path with even gallop, easily, gracefully, at arrowy speed.

His foot catching in a rut, he stumbled; picked himself up again and ran on. Everything swam before his eyes. A roaring as of the sea sounded in his ears.

The hounds drew nearer, nearer, nearer, lessening the distance between them at every bound.

Then Berthier saw it was in vain for him to fly. He caught at the branch of a tree, and endeavoured to lift himself upon it and scramble beyond their reach. The bough bent with his weight. He threw up his feet, to clasp the branch, clinging with his arms, but could not catch the wood. The hounds were beneath him, leaping at him. His arms had not the strength to lift him. The teeth of Poulet entered his calf. He fell to his feet, and ran on, but Pigeon was before him bounding at his throat. He broke off a portion of a bush, a hazel-branch covered with leaves, and thrashed at the dogs with it, but could not hurt them. He backed to an oak and defended himself with his branch and feet, shrieking for fear.

Then Poulet flew at his throat, and he fell; Pigeon danced over and round him, yelping.

The charcoal-burner, begrimed with coal-dust, came up, brandishing a cudgel, and beat off the hounds, standing astride over the prostrate man.

'A thousand livres if you save me!' groaned Berthier.

'A thousand devils!' roared the peasant. 'I will but save you from being torn to bits by these brutes, that I may deliver you over to justice.'

The hounds were furious; they rushed and snapped at Berthier's limbs, at his hands, his feet, at his head, just as they had been wont to rush and snap at their food whilst he beat them off with his whip.

The pain of their bites, the horror of his position, the fear of what was in store for him overcame him, and he lost consciousness.

---

CHAPTER XXXVI.

In the afternoon of July 23, Berthier was brought into Paris through the Porte S. Martin, attended by a mob, many of whom had followed for twenty leagues.

He was in his own private carriage, with M. de la Rivière at his side. Madame, in one of her fancies, had chosen to sit outside.

The mob danced before him and raged behind him. A hideous procession was formed. A brass band led the way, followed by national guards, and soldiers from all corps which they had deserted, marching arm-in-arm, chanting with full lungs:—

'Ah! ça ira, ça ira, ça ira!
Les aristocrats à la lanterne!
Ah! ça ira, ça ira, ça ira!
Les aristocrats on les pendra
La liberté triomphera
Malgré les tyrans, tout réussira.'

The top of the carriage had been broken in by the people, that they might see the hated Berthier better. He sat, white, quivering, in a dream; seeing faces peering at him from above as men climbed behind the cabriolet and looked down on him, from each side, as they thrust their heads in at the windows to stare at him. He heard them hoot and curse, but he scarcely heeded them. Sometimes blows were aimed at him, but Étienne de la Rivière protected him. A fiddler mad with the general excitement climbed up behind the vehicle and beat at Berthier with his violin. The elector broke the instrument on his arm, and then the musician struck with the handle. M. de la Rivière stood up and thrust the fiddler from his perch, and he fell back and disappeared among the crowd that followed.

Madame Berthier, on the box, had adorned her head with a yellow turban, and bore a pole, to which was fastened an orange streamer; this she waved, and at the same time shouted joyously, 'We have him here caged! It was all my doing; I hunted him down with my dogs.'

Banners, rudely extemporised, were fluttered before the carriage, bearing inscriptions such as these:—'He has devoured the poor.' 'He has drunk the blood of the widow and the orphan.' 'He has cheated the king.' 'He has betrayed his country.'

As the broken vehicle passed through the streets, pieces of sour black bread rained in at the top and at the windows, whilst the people howled, 'Take that and eat it, it is what you have given us to eat.'

At the fountain Maubuée the procession was arrested by a tide of people rolled out of La Grève, whither the news had reached that Berthier was entering Paris.

That morning, at nine o'clock, Foulon had been brought to the capital. Some of his servants probably had let the secret escape that he was staying in the château of M. de Sartines, late lieutenant of police, at Viry, near Fontainebleau. Thither, accordingly, some of the electors, followed by a troop of people, had hastened. They found the old man walking in the park. On being arrested, he entreated the electors who seized him to do him the honour of taking a pinch of snuff.

The people, in spite of the remonstrances of his conductors, fell upon him, put a truss of hay on his back, adorned him with a nosegay of nettles, and a collar of thistles. 'You wanted to give us hay,' they said; 'you shall eat some yourself.'

Thus equipped he was led to Paris, and brought before the committee in the Hôtel de Ville.

It was decided that he should be imprisoned in the Abbaye. But La Grève was full of people, and it was questionable whether he could be conducted thither in safety.

If Lafayette had been there, it was thought that the people might have been calmed; but he was absent, and the municipality were in uncertainty what to do. The crowd became more excited, and clamoured for Foulon.

Bailly, gentle, and unfit for such a position, descended to the square to entreat the mob to respect the Hôtel de Ville and the accused; but his voice was scarcely heard, and no attention was paid to his remonstrances.

The crowd forced the few guards before the door from their places, and followed the mayor up the stairs into the great hall, where they bellowed incessantly for Foulon.

After some hesitation, the electors produced him. The old gentleman was perfectly composed. Observing a female in the crowd before him, he detached one of the nettles from his bouquet; and, with a courteous bow, offered it her, saying, 'I am sorry to be unable to offer you a choicer flower, mademoiselle, but pray accept the wish, and overlook the insignificance of the herb; and I will thank you to remind those around you that certain plants cannot be touched with impunity.'

'You are very calm, monsieur,' said one of the guards.

'Sir,' replied Foulon at once, 'crime alone can be disconcerted. Take a pinch of snuff.'

'Why did you want us to eat hay?' shouted some of the crowd.

'Because I eat it myself,' replied Foulon, 'in the shape of beef. Cows eat hay—and I eat cows. Can I wish you anything better?'

M. de Poizc, one of the electors, then addressed the people, urging upon them the illegality of precipitately condemning the accused, without giving him an opportunity of summoning witnesses to prove his innocence.

'Let everything be done in order.'

'Yes, in order,' the mob shouted.

'Every culprit must be first judged,' continued the elector.

'Yes, judged first and hung after,' was answered.

'That comes in order, does it not?' some one cried, and there rose a laugh.

'Gentlemen,' said a M. Osselin, 'in order that a man should be judged, he must have judges. Let us send M. Foulon before the proper tribunal.'

This proposal was met with cries of dissatisfaction.

'We will have him judged at once.'

'We will not let him go before tribunals which are sure to acquit him.'

'The judges are his friends.'

Such were some of the cries that rose upon the proposition of M. Osselin. That gentleman, without losing his presence of mind, replied, 'Well, if you do not like the ordinary judges, it is indispensable that you should nominate others.'

This suggestion did not meet the end proposed by its author.

The mass of the people called repeatedly, 'Do you judge him, you electors!'

'No,' answered M. Osselin; 'we have no authority either to judge or to make judges. Name them yourselves.'

Again M. Osselin was mistaken. He had calculated on the people hesitating to form a criminal tribunal; but with one voice they proposed the curés of S. Étienne du Mont and of S. André des Arcs.

'Two judges are insufficient!' cried M. Osselin; 'there must be seven.'

Then, after a little difficulty, the people agreed upon five more.

'Very well; now you have seven judges,' said M. Osselin, who laboured to save Foulon, and for that purpose raised difficulties; 'you must have also a secretary.'

'You shall be secretary.'

'And a procureur du roi.'

'We name M. Duveyrier.'

That gentleman, forced against his will to act as prosecutor, asked what charges were brought against the accused.

The people shouted in reply that the prisoner impoverished the land to enrich himself, that he wanted to make the peasants eat hay, that he had counselled the king to bombard Paris.

'We bring a capital accusation against him,—of treason towards the nation.'

'If the accusation be capital,' said the two curés, rising, 'we refuse to act as judges.'

'It is capital,' the people shouted.

'We are forbidden by the canons of the Church to shed blood,' said the curé of S. Étienne du Mont, 'therefore my brother priest and I refuse to act as judges.'

A storm burst forth. Some cried, 'The priests are right;' others thundered, 'We are being hoodwinked; they want to save the prisoner.'

The clamour for judgment on the unfortunate Foulon became deafening. The electors began to fear for themselves.

'Gentlemen, we want two judges in the place of the priests,' said one of them.

'We name MM. Bailly and Lafayette.'

'But M. de Lafayette is absent. What is to be done? shall we wait for him, or will you name some one as a substitute?'

'You judges name your coadjutor.'

But at that moment Lafayette came in and seated himself at the bureau of the electors.

With some difficulty silence was impressed on the crowd in the hall, and then Lafayette addressed them.

'Gentlemen,' said he, 'I cannot blame your anger and your indignation against this man. I myself have never esteemed him; I have always regarded him as a rogue, and I believe in my heart that no punishment can exceed his deserts. You wish him to be sentenced; we have the same wish, he shall be sentenced and punished; but he has accomplices, and it is important that we should know their names. I am going to order him to be conducted to the Abbaye; there he shall be tried and condemned to the infamous death he has so richly deserved.'

'Yes, yes!' was the unanimous response; 'send him away to prison. Bring him out.'

Foulon looked round, opened his snuff-box, poured the rest of its contents into his palm, and applied it to his nose.

'This may be my last snuff,' said he collectedly to those who stood by him. 'I have now none to offer you, I grieve to state.'

A man at that instant forced his way before the bureau, and exclaimed, 'You electors are mocking us. What need is there of judging a man who has been judged these thirty years?'

Instantly a rush was made at Foulon, and he was dragged by a multitude of hands along the hall. In vain he struggled; in vain did Lafayette cry to the people to hearken to reason, in vain did Bailly ring his bell and address the mob. Their enemy was within their grasp, and he was swept away from the tribunal.

'Bah!' said Foulon; 'you will sting your hands with the nettles.'

He was drawn through the door; it was like the vortex of a whirlpool, and in this portal the life was almost crushed out of him by the press. As he was thrust into the open air and sunlight, he looked up at the sky, then cloudless and of the deepest azure.

'Stand back!' said he; and disengaging his arm, he flung his bunch of nettles in the faces of those before him. 'Eat them, you rascals,' he said, and laughed bitterly.

His appearance was hailed with repeated thunders of—'To the lantern!'

'Make him ask pardon of the nation,' was shouted.

'Give me space to make my bow,' said Foulon, calm as ever, though a rope was being attached to his neck.

'Ask pardon of the nation!' was repeated.

'I exceedingly regret, great nation of French,' said the old man, bending ironically, and laying his hand on his heart, 'I deplore, with all my heart, that Providence and the stupidity of your king prevented me from having literally made you munch thistles like an ass.'

A scream of rage from those around him was the response.

Instantly he was seen, high above the people's heads, dangling to the lantern, but only for an instant. The rope broke and he fell. He was again run up, and again the cord gave way. Then his head was hacked off and elevated on a pike.

At that same moment the news flew through La Grève that Berthier was entering Paris by the Porte S. Martin, and the crowd, to a man, rushed in that direction.

At the Fontaine Maubuée, the two crowds clashed. He who bore the head of Foulon ran forward amidst the cheers of the mob that accompanied Berthier. In the madness of her own excitement, Madame Plomb did not observe him, and he passed her when her head was turned in the opposite direction. Her yellow flag engrossed her attention; it was a streamer a couple of yards long, and as she brandished it the silk twisted itself around the horses, for sometimes she used it as a whip. Every time the mob shouted, she stood up, whirled her flag, and shouted also.

The people were unable to make her out, with her long black gown, her ash-grey face, blazing eyes, and saffron turban. They supposed she was masked, and represented the genius of Death, and some applauded her: 'Behold Berthier conducted to judgment by Death.'

At the moment that the procession began to move on, a man hastily dressed in a black ox-hide, his face covered with lamp-black, and the horns of the ox on his head, holding a pitchfork, leaped upon the box, and forced the driver to yield his place to him.

Instantly vociferous cheers greeted this new adjunct to the spectacle.

'He is driven to destruction by Death and the Devil!' was cried; and the mob danced and screamed around the coach.

It was then that he who bore Foulon's head on a pike had the brutality to thrust the ghastly object—the dead mouth of which was filled with hay—into the carriage for Berthier to look at.

The miserable man's eyes glazed at the sight, and he smiled a ghastly smile.

Then the bearer of the trophy sprang up behind the carriage, holding his pike aloft.

The band recommenced their martial strain. The soldiers took up the chant, the banners fluttered forward; the devil blew a hideous blast on a cow's horn, and Madame Plomb waved her flag: thus the procession advanced.

Arrived before the Hôtel de Ville, M. de la Rivière with difficulty drew Berthier out of the vehicle. The unfortunate man was sick, faint, and dizzy, and he probably would have been unable to walk, had it been required of him, but a compact body of guards surrounding him bore him forward into the great hall of S. John.

Without being conscious of where he was, or what was being done, he felt himself forced before the bar.

Silence was enforced, and then the procureur, recently appointed by the people, began to speak.

Berthier raised his hand, and all noticed how it shook.

'I am tired,' he said; 'I have not shut my eyes for two or three nights. Let me have a little repose, I pray you.'

'No; no repose for you, till you have been sentenced,' cried the assistants.

'At least give me a chair.'

One was handed to him, and he fell into it, the picture of wretchedness. His eyes were lustreless, his complexion dull and dingy, and his hair limp. His great cheeks hung down like the dewlaps of a cow. He had not shaved for a week, and his mouth and chin were covered with a coarse growth of short hair. When he put up his shaking hand to wipe his eyes, he exposed a dirty hand, and ruffles at his wrist draggled and soiled.

'What is the charge you bring against him?' asked M. Duveyrier.

'He supplied the army with ammunition to butcher us.'

'He has made his fortune by the compact of famine.'

'He has kept back provisions from the city, when the poor were perishing for want of bread.'

'He stole from me my betrothed,' said a young man in a white smock, and with the marks of plaster on his hands and in his hair. 'He destroyed her fair fame, and she drowned herself in the Seine.'

'He robbed me of my little daughter,' cried a quack doctor, stepping forward, 'and I have never seen her since.'

'Monster!' yelled an old woman, shaking her fist in his face, 'where is my little Antoinette?'

'We will only hear crimes against the nation,' said Bailly, the mayor. 'Confine yourselves to these.'

'Why did you bring the troops round Paris? Why did you keep back the corn?' the people cried.

'I have obeyed superior orders,' answered Berthier, huskily. 'You have my papers; examine them.'

'I accuse him,' cried a shrill voice, and Madame Plomb tore her way towards the front,—'I accuse him,—I, his wife!' she said. 'He has been unfaithful to me. He has filled his house with profligates, he has kicked my cat, he has called me the leaden woman, he has shut me up in the Bastille—me, his wife, in the Bastille!'

The crowd groaned, and then hooted.

'Look here, Beast,' she said, letting her streamer hang down above his head; 'is not this like a scythe? am not I Death? The people call me so! See! I suspend the scythe above your head; come on! the devil is waiting for you without; come on!'

'Come on, come on!' roared the mob.

'Were you able to escape in the forest?' she asked.

He did not answer, but looked at her with filmy eyes.

'No,' she replied to herself, 'no, you were not able. I shut the way with a curse. Did your eyes help you? No; I blinded them with a curse. Did your ears assist you? No; I stopped them with a curse. Did your hands do you good service? No; I paralysed them with a curse. Did your feet bear you swiftly along? No; I lamed them with a curse. Come with me; I must hand you over to my friend the devil.'

Bailly sprang to his feet, rang his bell repeatedly, cried to the people to listen to him, but could only obtain a half audience. He laboured to calm this unbridled multitude possessed by rage; he exposed with eloquence that prudence, necessity, reason demand that the life of the accused should be spared till he had been given every opportunity of exculpating himself from the charges laid against him. He showed that before he could be convicted every attempt should be made to discover his accomplices. But his eloquence was in vain. The people were starving, and one of the causes of their hunger was in their power. Some of these people had not eaten for two days, and hunger makes all animals, man included, ferocious.

'I commit him to the prison of the Abbaye Saint-Germain,' said Bailly, in despair. 'Guards, you are responsible for his safety. Guards, attend to me; let him be injured at your peril. Close your ranks about him, and keep off the mob. You are responsible,' he again cried, trembling in his alarm; 'remember!'

With Berthier and the national guard the rest of those in the hall poured out, leaving the electors alone, listening to the hideous rout outside.

On the steps the crowd grappled with the soldiers for the victim; they were thrust this way and that way; they were tripped up; they were blinded by their hats being drawn over their eyes.

Foremost was the plaster-cast maker. He gave a great shout,—his hand was on Berthier's collar.

The next to seize him was the doctor.

'Where is my daughter?' asked the old man, in a scream.

The prisoner did not answer.

'Don't kill him!' shrieked the doctor, as the young man smote at him. 'Spare him till he has told me where my little daughter is. My darling Veronique, where is she? Tell me, Berthier, tell me.' He shook him violently.

'Give me back my Antoinette!' screamed the hag who had accused him in the hall.

'Sacré, let me go!' cried Berthier, struggling with the plaster-cast dealer.

'Answer me, man, for the death of my friend Matthias André!' exclaimed Étienne Percenez, leaping at his throat.

They stumbled down one of the steps, and the doctor fell; Berthier recovered himself, and wrenched a musket from one of the guard, and with it defended himself, madly striking right and left.

The plaster-cast dealer seized a pike, and smote at him with it; the blow fell on Berthier's fingers, and he dropped the gun, screaming with pain. Knives were unsheathed, and the infuriated people rushed in upon him.

'Stay, stay!' cried Madame Plomb, uncoiling the long yellow strip of silk from her head. 'Strangle him; I have promised him this.' She threw the coil about his throat, his hands went up into the air; his feet were tripped up, and he fell.

'Stand off, stand off!' yelled his wife; 'let me kiss him.' She stooped over the suffocating man, whose eyes were shot from their sockets, and whose face was dark with congested blood.

'He is like Gabrielle's father,' exclaimed madame, laughing.

'How his feet spurn, and his hands clutch at the steps! Ah, ah, Berthier! I salute you. You are purple,—leaden like me.'

Then the mob fell upon him with knives and bayonets, and the unfortunate woman saw nothing but a writhing knot of people, splashing in blood, that spouted between their trampling feet, and poured down the steps.

'Ah, ha! madame,' roared a butcher, catching the poor lady by the arm, 'see, see! you have your vengeance on them both now.' He pointed to Berthier's head, at that moment elevated on the end of the pitchfork belonging to the man masked in the black ox-hide.

'Yes,' said madame, 'the devil possesses him now.'

'And your father, madame?'

'What of him? He is not dead, you know. That was poor Adolphe they buried.'

'Pooh!'

Dancing above the sea of heads was a face stiffened in death, with the mouth crammed full of blood-sodden hay.

Madame Berthier gazed wildly at it for a full minute, following it with her eyes.

Then she uttered a scream, so piercing that it was heard in the hall by Bailly and the electors.

'Who have killed him? Show me the murderers!'

'Madame,' said the butcher, 'you have been his murderer. You have killed them both.'

She turned with another cry, thrust her hands into her dishevelled grey hair, and starting forwards, fell down the steps, struck her head against the stones in falling, and would have been trodden to death by the raging crowd, in their eagerness to approach the corpse of Berthier, had not Percenez sprung to her assistance, stooped and raised her in his arms.

'Help me, friend,' he said to a guard, 'let us place her in safety.'

So they bore her, stunned, and with her temple bleeding, to the home of Madame Deschwanden.

---

CHAPTER XXXVII.

For a fortnight Madame Berthier remained delirious with brain fever. At the end of that time she began to recover, but her memory was impaired. She remembered nothing of her confinement in the Bastille, nothing of her pursuit of Berthier and of the subsequent events. Only hazily did the form of her husband present itself to her mind; it was a note which cyphered, and therefore disturbed, the harmony of memory.

Her former freakish predilections for the colour yellow had suddenly changed into aversion. It was somehow connected with an event which had disappeared from the range of her thoughts; and, as a thread leading nowhere, it irritated her without her being able to account for it.

The cat also was forgotten. She did not allude to him once. But she distinctly knew Gabrielle. Perhaps if the yellow Gabriel had been brought to her she would have recognised him. She did not know when she had made the girl's acquaintance, or where she had first met her; but she knew her face and her name.

Her great delight, on her recovery, was to listen to the corporal and Nicholas conversing about their native land. She paid the greatest attention to their words, laughed childishly, and smiled at Gabrielle.

But especially was she gratified with the song, 'Heart, my heart, why art thou weary?' Nicholas played it to her on his flageolet, and the corporal sang it, till the poor woman knew it by heart.

One day she was sitting in the window, propped up with pillows, looking out at the roof-tops, and the blue sky over them. No one was in the room; but Gabrielle, who had left it for a few minutes, on returning found her singing in a plaintive voice, and crying softly,—

'Heart, my heart, why art thou weary,
Why to grief and tears a prey?
Foreign lands are bright and cheery;
Heart, my heart, what ails thee, say?
That which ails me past appeasing,
I am lost, a stranger here;
What, though foreign lands be pleasing,
Home, sweet home, alone is dear.'

Then, turning to Gabrielle, she asked when they were going.

'Where would you go, dear mistress?' asked the girl.

'Home, to native rocks and sky,' she answered; and then sang,—

'Through the fragrant pine-boughs bending,
I should see the glacier shine;
See the nimble goats ascending
Gentian-dappled slopes in line.
See the cattle, hear the tinkle
Of the merry-clashing bells;
See white sheep the pastures sprinkle
In the verdant dewy dells.'

'Do you know, Gabrielle,' said the lady, interrupting her song, 'the cow-bells are the most beautiful music in the world? Call Nicholas here. He will tell you the same.' As she insisted, Gabrielle was obliged to go to the young man's workshop, and summon him.

'I am sorry to disturb you, Mr. Nicholas, but madame is resolved to hear from you that cow-bells make beautiful music.'

'There is no music like them!' exclaimed the youth, becoming at once enthusiastic; 'you should hear them of a summer evening, when the cattle are being driven home to be milked. It is the maddest, merriest clatter in the world. You really must hear them. It is worth going all the way to Switzerland to hear them. I will go to madame instantly.' Rushing into the room to her, he began at once,—'Madame! there is nothing like them. To hear them at a distance, a tinkle here and a tinkle there, as the cattle are being driven from the pastures,—it is like silver music rippling down the sward in countless rills; then the cows unite in the path, and you have fifty twinkling, tinkling notes rushing together; and when they come close to you it is overwhelming,—it is like children's thoughts in play set to music.'

Madame Berthier clapped her hands.

'Gabrielle, when shall we hear the cow-bells? I am dying of impatience.'

'In October, madame, my father and the rest of us return home. Oh, what happiness! The corporal and I have been studying a map, and my father is bent on going by the Jura, and Pontarlier. Then you come winding through the mountains among rocks and pines; that is a sort of first taste, to give one zest, to prepare you for what is to come, lest you should die of over-happiness. And then, then, then,' the lad's great eyes grew bigger, and light danced in the blue irises,—'Then all at once, at a turn of the road, just when least expecting it, or trying not to expect it, for you are hungering all the while—what is that—that ragged line, half way up the sky, so faint, and blue, and silvery? Is it a bank of clouds? No, it is too still for that. It is the Alps, the Alps, the Alps!' He clasped his hands to his eyes, which began to fill. 'And down below your feet lies the lake of Neufchatel, a broad mirror, still and blue, like the sky; and you see the vineyards sweeping down to the very edge of the water, and the old brown towers and steeples of the city against the glistening water. But above them all—there, whither your heart and soul stretch away, there they are, the dear, dear Alps!'

Madame Berthier was nearly as excited as Nicholas.

'And then,' he continued, 'to see again our mountain-flowers. The gentian, we call it himmels-blau, that is, heaven's-blue,—to see the slopes of short grass sprinkled with them, the little azure one and the large dark one, as thick as stars in the sky. And close to the snow you will find the little crocus, myriads white and violet, where the thawed ice has burnt up the grass. And the meadows full of white anemones and golden balls; and the buttercups white and purple, and the primulas in marshy land. Oh, madame! do you know the Alpine rose? Dear Gabrielle, you must come with me, if only to see that! Think, up among the mountains a patch of grey rock, and above it a bush blazing with crimson flowers, and they are sometimes red as blood, and sometimes pale pink like your own sweet cheek—but not as it is now, it has grown red. Then the leaves are glossy green, like the myrtle, and underneath a russet-brown, the colour of the shaggy goats. You have tracts of these glorious flowers, and beside the silver-grey old rock they are so lovely. You would say the mountain blushed to think how beautiful it was.'

'Gabrielle!' cried madame, in ecstasy, 'I shall die, unless I go quickly to see the Alpine roses.'

'And the pinks,' continued Nicholas; 'lovely little red pinks in tufts, and sometimes their leaves are snipped, just as mother cuts the paper for the candlesticks, and of a tender lake tint.'

'When are we going, Gabrielle?' asked madame.

'We start in October, I hope,' said Nicholas; 'my father's time is up then.'

'Yes,' said the convalescent, 'we will all go then, Gabrielle and I.'

'That will be charming,' exclaimed the young man, 'will it not, mademoiselle?'

The girl did not answer.

'Yes,' continued the lady; 'we shall all go together, and then you, Nicholas, and Gabrielle can live with me; you know I have money.'

'My dear madame,' said the girl, becoming scarlet, 'let us talk of something else.'

'But I cannot, dear Gabrielle; I can think of nothing else, and it is such surpassing delight to me to hear the corporal and Nicholas talk. It will be so nice, too, for you and Nicholas.'

'The corporal, and Madame Deschwanden, and Madeleine will all be there,' said the girl, hiding her face that she might not encounter the nods and smiles of Nicholas.

'Don't be so sure of that,' said the little lady of the house, bustling into the room. 'Switzerland again, of course. I go there! not a bit, and get lost down a chasm in a glacier. Mon Dieu! fancy that, and I might at the moment have on my best gown and best bonnet. Climb your mountain peaks, indeed! you will see me put my head out of the top of one of these chimneys first, and cry "sweep, sweep!" Deschwanden may go, and you may go, Nicholas, if you like, but I remain at Paris. Would you have me migrate to the land of barbarism, at my time of life, and at a time, too, when the metropolis is a scene of the most charming incidents? My faith! It is as good as a play to see what is going on here—and you would tear me away between the acts, make me shut up the novel at the first volume! You are much mistaken if you think you will get me to Switzerland.'

'But what is to be done, mother?' asked Nicholas; 'my father has set his heart on returning to his father-land, and I verily believe it would be his death to have to forego what has been his desire for many years.'

'Let him go.'

'But he cannot leave you behind.'

'Why not? Let him imagine I am dead. Let him say to himself, "I am a widower once again; I am free as a bird, I will spread my wings, and seek a distant clime." Pretty bird he'd make, though! You Germans have no neatness, no delicacy and buoyancy of construction. You are great hawks—penguins, who never rise. But we French are ever on tiptoe, ready to soar; we only want a breath of gas in our bones, a few feathers on our backs, and you would find the sky swarm with us, laughing, chattering, wheeling here and there, coquetting, always polite, always graceful, and never flying beyond sight of la belle France.'

'But my father cannot in conscience——'

'Stay! never mention that word in my hearing. There it is, that is the mischief of it. Conscience is the lead that keeps you always in one position. I thought to have died of laughing. I saw in a shop window a range of dolls,—fat things rounded off below, without perceptible legs. You knocked them about, and they rocked to and fro, and always righted in the same position. I rushed into the shop, and I said—"Oblige me, those are German toys, are they not?" "Madame, you are right," was the answer I received. Well, Nicholas! I thought at once of you and your father, leaded with your dreadful dumpy conscience. My faith! why does not this precious conscience keep the corporal from going to Versailles?'

'What do you mean, mother? he is not going there.'

'Yes, he is. He has received orders transferring him there; he has to attend in the palace, as one of the guard. If he is so fond of me, let him refuse. You say he can't,—he is ordered there. Well, there is no help for it, he leaves me. Now let him suppose he is ordered off to Switzerland; there he goes. I will order him off. Right about face, quick, march!'

'Surely, mother, you will not be so heartless?'

'Ah bah! I shall do well enough here. I can't go to Versailles after him, can I? Well, and I won't go to Switzerland with him. That is my mind. I have my business and my pleasure here in Paris; I could not live away from either. Ask a nightingale to visit and admire the beauties of the bottom of the sea! invite a minnow to soar to the stars! expect a rose to throw its roots into the air and thrust its blossoms under the soil! Pshaw! This is just as sensible as asking me to plunge into your lakes, ascend your Alps, and bury myself in your mountain gorges under avalanches and glaciers and Heaven knows what besides.'

'Where is my father now?'

'He is out. He has to remove at once to the Swiss battalion at Rueil, and thence he will be sent with a new company to attend on the royal family and guard the palace. You see the French guard have at Versailles, as here, merged themselves in a national guard, so I fancy the Court prefers to be defended by foreign troops. Here he comes!'

The corporal entered and saluted Madame Berthier and his wife, then he went up to Gabrielle and patted her gently on the cheek. Nicholas gave her a knowing nod, as much as to say, 'you are a great pet of my father's.'

'Are you transferred to Versailles?' asked Nicholas; 'mother has just disconcerted us with that announcement.'

'Yes,' answered the corporal; 'I have been ordered to the barracks at Rueil for a week, and after that we are to be sent to Versailles; the Swiss guard at the palace is about to be reinforced.'

'It will not be for long,' said Nicholas.

'No, only till October,' answered the corporal, brushing up the hair on either side of his head; 'and then—' he rubbed his hand; 'then we set our faces homewards. I shall be free.'

'And I daresay you will not be sorry for it,' said Gabrielle, gently, lifting her eyes to his face.

'No, my dear, I shall be rejoiced. It does not please me to have to range myself against your countrymen. A civil war is a terrible thing, and I am half French myself.'

'You half French!' exclaimed Madame Deschwanden, with a shrug of the shoulders and a curl of the lip.

'Yes, wife, I am; not only because of my union with you, but also because I have spent many of my best years in this land, chiefly, however, because I entirely sympathise with the struggle that is begun. Had not we the same sort of thing in our land? There was Werner Stauffacher, Erni of Melchthal, and Walter Fürst——'

'Enough of them,' said madame, with an impatient stamp.

'Corporal,' asked the convalescent lady, 'are you going to return to where the cow-bells ring, and where there are Alps half way up to the sky?'

'Yes, madame, please God, and with the help of blessed Klaus!'

'And you will see the pinks, and the gentians, and the roses of the Alps?'

'I must, indeed I must,' exclaimed the corporal. 'Ah, ha! Nicholas, in October, three months more!'

'We are all going together,' said the poor lady; 'we all want to hear the cow-bells, and see the Alpine roses.'

'That will be perfect,' answered Corporal Deschwanden.

'Then Nicholas and Gabrielle can keep house for me.'

'That will crown all,' said the corporal, brushing up his hair over the right ear, then over the left, then above his brow.

'Gabrielle!' cried madame; but the girl darted out of the room.

'Nicholas,' said the invalid; 'I want Gabrielle, will you kindly fetch her for me?'

---

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

A last arrow remained in the quiver of the Court party.

The course pursued by the National Assembly after the reunion of the orders, proved to the aristocracy that a revolution could alone reinstate them in their ancient prerogatives and save them from disappearing as a class in the rising tide. They meditated a revolution accordingly, to be thus executed: the king and queen were to escape from Versailles and take refuge in the fortress of Metz, then powerfully garrisoned, and the head quarters of the army; when there, they could dissolve the Assembly, reduce Paris, and re-establish the ancient régime.

With their usual recklessness and folly, the members of this party allowed their plot to become public; they boasted and threatened, and enrolled members in the conspiracy, exasperating and alarming the popular party to such an extent that it became apparent to every one that a few days must decide whether the revolution was to be begun by the nobles or by the people.

The king and his family must not remain at Versailles, that was the conclusion of each party. Was he to be taken to Metz or to Paris? In the first case, the country would be plunged in civil war; the other alternative made the extinction of the aristocracy, as a class, certain.

In the meantime, the French guard had been dismissed from their attendance on the royal family, and the palace was placed under the protection of the Swiss and the body-guard alone.

A Flanders regiment was introduced into Versailles, and two hundred chasseurs of the Trois-Évêchés, from their barracks at Rambouillet, and the same number of the dragoons of Lorraine.

On the 2nd of October a dinner was given by the body-guard to the newly-arrived Flemish regiment, in the theatre of the palace. The stage was occupied by the officers, seated at a horse-shoe table; in the orchestra were the bands of the corps, and in the pit the tables of the soldiers of the Flemish regiment, the chasseurs, and the dragoons of Lorraine.

After the feast had lasted some hours, the king and the queen appeared in the royal box. Instantly an unanimous cry of 'Long live the king! long live the queen!' arose from the hall. All the banqueters rose, and the soldiers of Flanders and Lorraine, delighted to see the royal family, whom they hardly knew, overleaped the balustrade of the amphitheatre to approach and cheer them.

The king, moved by these tokens of affection, left his box and went round the table on the stage followed by the queen, who held her daughter by the hand, whilst the dauphin was carried by an officer of the guards.

In the midst of the general enthusiasm, the band struck up the air of Grétry,—'O Richard, O mon roi! l'univers t'abandonne!'

When the royal family retired, they were followed by the officers and soldiers drunk with enthusiasm and wine, and assembling in the marble court under the king's windows, they repeated their cheers, and promises to die in his defence. White cockades were distributed by the ladies of the court, and a national badge having been shown to the excited soldiers was greeted with scorn and was trampled under foot.

Next day followed another feast, and a similar display of zeal for the cause of the queen against that of the nation.

On the 4th, as might have been anticipated, Paris was in an uproar. The people felt instinctively that not a day was to be lost. The aristocracy might at any moment snatch the king from Versailles, carry him to a fortress, surround him with troops, and from thence make him dictate laws and destroy the scaffolding of the new constitution, in the erection of which the National Assembly was laboriously engaged. If the Court party were allowed to steal a march on the people, all was lost.

The most inflammatory harangues in the Palais Royal assisted in exciting the general conflagration. The scenes preceding the seizure of the Bastille were renewed; but there was no fortress to be captured on this occasion,—it was the person of the king must be secured, that the democracy might place him in the revolutionary vortex, might keep watch over him, and disperse the clique which dragged him into schemes antagonistic to the wishes and welfare of the nation.

On the morning of the 5th, all Paris was in movement; but that which determined its march on Versailles, was the famine.

In spite of the efforts of the committee of subsistence established by Bailly, corn, and flour especially, arrived in small quantities.

At four o'clock in the morning a crowd besieged the shops of the bakers. For hours the people remained patiently en queue; then they began to fight to obtain for money a loaf often insufficient to fill the mouths that clamoured for it at home. The wretched quality of the bread added to the fury of the populace. Little more was needed to produce an explosion. The account of the scenes which had been enacted at Versailles fell like a spark upon these inflammable tempers, and the fire blazed forth in an instant.

'Let us bring the baker among us!' cried Madeleine, who, like the rest, had been waiting for the morning's provision of bread.

'Yes, we must have the chief baker here,' shouted several others.

Madeleine, without another word, seized on a drum, and rattled it vigorously. The women trooped round her, and in a moment she was at the head of a legion of famished, furious women, some of whom had not tasted food for thirty hours.

'Let us march to Versailles,' cried several; 'let us besiege the great bakehouse.'

'Lead on, you girl with the drum!' cried others.

'Whither shall I lead?' asked Madeleine.

'To Versailles!' was the general shout.

'We will tell the Assembly that we starve,'—'we will bring the king to Paris, and he shall see how hungry we are,'—'we will surround him, and protect the good papa from our enemies and his.' Such were some of the cries that arose.

'Let us go to the Hôtel de Ville!' called another.

'Yes, yes, to the Hôtel de Ville first,' the mob clamoured.

It happened just then that Madame Deschwanden and Gabrielle were passing. The little lady saw Madeleine at once, and she ran to her, arrested her in her drumming, and asked, 'My dear! for pity's sake, what is the matter?'

'Mother, the poor things are starving; and the great nobles at Versailles are going to carry our king off to Metz and make war on the people; then we shall have famine and war together.'

'That will never do,' said madame; 'no one will want new caps, and I shall be out of work. But why are you drumming?'

'Mother! we are going to the Hôtel de Ville first, and then on to Versailles to bring the king to Paris.'

'Nonsense, Madeleine.'

'We are going to do it,' said the girl bluntly; 'the men are cowards,—see what the women will do.'

'Oh ecstasy! oh raptures!' exclaimed Madame Deschwanden; 'what sport! it is as good as a play. I shall accompany you, and Gabrielle shall come too.'

'What, to Versailles?' asked the little peasantess in dismay; 'I pray you let me remain behind.'

'No, come with me, I will protect you; the day is fine, and we shall have a charming expedition, and shall see such dresses. Ecstasy! raptures!'

In vain did Gabrielle plead; Madame Deschwanden linked her arm within her own and drew her along.

Onward drave the concourse of women—shop-girls, milliners, portresses, servants, market-women—till they reached the Place de Grève. The cavalry of the national guard were drawn up there; the women charged them, and with a volley of stones drove them back, for the soldiers could not make up their minds to fire upon them.

They would have burnt the Hôtel de Ville, in their ravenous wildness, because it contained no bread, had not the solemn, gigantic Stanislas Maillard, one of the conquerors of the Bastille, arrested them. He beat a drum and obtained a hearing. He offered to conduct the crowd to Versailles, and the women, liking his appearance and knowing his name, put themselves under his order. In half an hour the army of women was in marching order; they drew with them the cannon of the Place de Grève, and were armed with sticks, cutlasses, and a few guns.

Whilst this troop of women marched to Versailles, Paris was in ebullition.

Early in the morning, the alarm-bell had been rung by the fellow now in command of the men who marched after the women. He had been caught in the act and hung, but his bull-neck had saved him, and the women had cut him down. The national guard, assembling first in their districts, betook themselves in a mass to the Hôtel de Ville and filled La Grève, crying, 'To Versailles!' A deputation of grenadiers sought out Lafayette, who, along with the municipality, used his utmost endeavours to arrest the movement. One of these men addressed the general, told him he was being deceived, that it was time that things should be brought to a climax, that the people were wretched, that the source of the evil was at Versailles, and that they were resolved on bringing the king to Paris.

Lafayette resisted, descended to the square, harangued the grenadiers, but his voice was drowned by cries of 'To Versailles! to Versailles!'

For several hours he attempted by speeches and by signs to control the military mob. Then he turned to re-enter the town-hall, but his grenadiers barred the passage. 'Morbleu! general,' they said, 'you shall stop with us; you shall not abandon us.'

At length an order was transmitted to him from the municipality requiring him, 'on account of the urgency of the circumstances and the desire of the people,' to transport himself to Versailles. The general mounted his white horse, put himself at the head of his battalions, and gave the command to march, which was received with acclamations.

It was then six o'clock in the evening, and the rain had begun to fall.

We must return to Versailles.

The ministers had been informed of the march of the women of Paris, and M. de Saint-Priest wrote a letter to the king, who was out hunting in the wood of Meudon, urging him to return immediately; and M. de Cubières, their esquire, was despatched with it, whilst detachments of the body-guard were sent in different directions to protect the king's return. At three o'clock M. de Cubières found the king and gave him the note. 'What!' exclaimed Louis, 'the women of Paris are coming to ask me for bread. Poor creatures, I would supply them without giving them the trouble to come for it, if I had it.'

A few minutes after the return of the king, the women arrived at the barrier.

In the meantime, the regiment of Flanders armed, and the body-guard mounted their horses; the latter took up their position in the Place d'Armes before the grating that enclosed the court of the ministers, whilst some invalids, the Swiss corps, together with the Flemish regiment, formed a line of battle on the left, and the chasseurs and the national guard occupied the right. A body of dragoons was sent down the avenue of Paris to take up a position before the hall of the Menus-Plaisirs.

These dispositions were no sooner taken than the women entered Versailles.

The Count of Luxembourg asked the king for orders to give the body-guard. 'Nonsense,' replied Louis XVI, 'orders against a band of women! you are joking.'

The women were no sooner in the town than they invaded the court of Menus-Plaisirs, and demanded to be admitted to the Assembly.

Maillard and half-a-dozen women were alone admitted, after some difficulties had been made; one of these was Madeleine with her drum, and another was Gabrielle, who clung to her. A third bore a tambourine at the end of a long pole.

'We come,' said Maillard, sword in hand, his black suit splashed with mud and tattered, 'we come to demand bread, and the punishment of the body-guard who have insulted the national cockade. We are good patriots; on our road we have torn down the black cockades, and I will have the pleasure of tearing one before the Assembly.'

Whereupon another man, he with the bull-neck, told his story, how he had been nearly hung that morning for having rung the alarm-bell. 'We will force every one to wear the patriotic badge,' he said. Thereupon murmurs arose; turning towards those who uttered these sounds of dissatisfaction, he asked, 'What! are we not all brothers?'

Mounier, the president, replied calmly, 'No one in this Assembly will deny that all men are to be considered as brothers; the indignation you resent was aroused by your menace of using force. Speak with respect where you are.'

Thereupon the women began to cry out for bread. The president assured them that the Assembly was distressed to learn the state of famine in which the capital was plunged, and that it would use its utmost endeavours to obtain a free circulation of corn, and provide for the regular supply of grain. He told them that their presence at Versailles was of no earthly use, that it impeded the debates, and could not relieve the scarcity of provisions.

'That is not enough,' said the great Maillard; and the women exclaimed again, 'Bread, bread!'

A member then proposed that a deputation should be sent to the king to inform him of the starving condition of the capital. This proposition was accepted. The Bishop of Langres took the president's chair, and Mounier set out, moodily, at the head of a deputation, followed by the women in a crowd.

The rain fell in torrents, and the avenue of Paris was a lake of mud. Followed by the wild band of females fantastically dressed, some in rags, some armed, shouting, singing, cursing, Mounier and the deputies made their way towards the palace. Body-guards were patrolling and galloping about, and mistaking the president for a leader of the insurrection, and wanting to disperse the multitude, they galloped through the deputation and their suite, scattering them and splashing them from head to foot with mire.

By this time the ragged army of men which followed that of the women had entered the Place d'Armes by the avenues of Saint Cloud and Paris, armed with sticks, pitchforks, and a few muskets. The women, rolling into the place in floods, were mingled with the crowd of men, and vented their rage against the body-guard in invectives. As the different detachments of these guards, which had been sent in quest of the king, arrived and joined those before the court of the ministers, they were attacked and insulted. A pike flung against a guard galloping to rejoin his squadron, fell between the legs of his horse and threw it down. The soldier fell, and the populace crowded round him to seize him, when he was rescued by M. Desroches, captain of the national guard, arriving at the moment with his company. He attempted to capture the young man who had flung the pike, but the people rushed between him and the youth and facilitated his escape.

Whilst this was taking place, the regiment of Flanders was the object of the caresses of the women. Théroigne de Méricourt, covered with a scarlet cloak, penetrated the ranks of the soldiers, flattered them, and entreated them not to oppose the people. A great many women, plucking up courage at the immobility of the guards, who had orders not to use their arms, advanced to the very feet of the horses and tried to creep between them into the court before the palace.

All of a sudden, a party of women, headed by a man named Burnout, in the uniform of the national Parisian guard, rushed upon the mounted body-guards. The horses, frightened at the noise, and the charge of Burnout, sabre in hand, swerved, and allowed him to pass. But, separated from the women who were unable to follow him, he found himself alone between the railing and the soldiers. He was immediately pursued; but he escaped in the direction of the national guard, who, it will be remembered, were drawn up on the right of the body-guard, with whom they were on the worst possible terms. Burnout received several blows with the flat of the sabre, and fell over a bucket; this caused the French guard to raise the cry that the body-guard were massacring one of their men; whereupon a musket was fired by one of the national guard, and the arm of an officer in pursuit of Burnout was broken. The commander of the national guard, Lecointre, a violent partisan of extreme revolutionary measures, at once sought the officers of the body-guard, to learn from them what were their intentions. They replied that they had no wish to fall out with the national guard. Then he hurried to the regiment of Flanders, which had been already tampered with by the women, and asked them how they purposed to conduct themselves towards the people. The soldiers replied that they would not fire upon them, and they gave Lecointre and his guards some of their cartouches.

During this time Mounier and his deputation passed through the lines of the guard before the grating, were received with honour, and admitted to the court along with twelve women, of whom were Madeleine and Gabrielle. Five women were alone permitted to see the king. Madeleine thrust herself forward—Gabrielle remained behind, in the ante-chamber. She was weary, faint, and hungry. Madeleine had drawn her along with her against her wishes, and the poor girl had been frightened and miserable all day.

She took the opportunity of sinking into a chair; and then, overcome by her weariness, her tears began to flow. M. d'Estaing happening to pass through the ante-room at the moment, saw that she was crying, and coming towards her said kindly, 'My child, you are weeping because you have not seen the king.' Then he took her by the hand and led her into the royal apartment, where were the king, his ministers, and the deputation.

'Why did you come to Versailles?' asked M. de Saint-Priest of Gabrielle.

'Sir,' she answered, 'I was forced into the troop;' and she looked reproachfully at Madeleine.

'We have come to Versailles,' said Madeleine, 'to inform the king that his good town of Paris wants him. We are afraid that some people will take him from this place and carry him to Metz, and we have come to bring him home with us.'

'They are hungry,' cried Mounier; 'the women clamour for bread.'

'But you should have asked bread of the municipality,' said Saint-Priest, addressing Madeleine.

'We went to the Hôtel de Ville,' she replied, 'and we found no one there.'

The king, whose eye had rested on Gabrielle, saw that she was deadly pale. He asked her if she were ill.

'Sire,' she answered, 'I am tired and faint.'

The king filled a goblet with wine, and took it to her and made her drink. She thanked him with a speaking look, and tasted it; but at the same moment every object swam before her eyes, and she fainted away. When she returned to herself, the king was stooping over her. He gave her smelling-salts, and sprinkled water on her brow. Madeleine fanned her and she recovered.

Louis gave a written order for the immediate supply of food to Paris, and handed a copy to Madeleine, who rushed down the court, shouting 'Long live the king!' She held Gabrielle's arm in hers, and passed outside the railing, and between the soldiers to the crowd, to show them the order.

Instantly it was discovered that the copy was not signed, and they were constrained to return to the king and request his signature.

When they reappeared, the women outside were in a state of violent exasperation; they had taken it into their heads that Madeleine had been bribed; and they cried out that the king had given her twenty-five louis-d'or. In vain did the girl empty her pockets to show there was no money there; they then assaulted Gabrielle. A great commotion arose. Some cried out, 'These girls have betrayed us. They have sold us to the queen!' and a thousand voices screamed, 'Hang the traitors!'

What caused this sudden transition of feeling,—whether it arose from the jealousy of those who had failed to obtain admission, whether it was that Madeleine appeared too enthusiastic in her praise of his majesty, or whether the tumult had been excited by a malicious slander,—it is impossible to say. Certain it is, however, that a crowd of wild, ravenous amazons attacked the two girls with their fists; a garter was knotted round Madeleine's neck, and she was dragged off towards the nearest lamp, and would infallibly have been strung up to it, had not the guards interfered and rescued her. Gabrielle in the meanwhile was in the grasp of a furious termagant, who fastened her hands round her throat and attempted to strangle her. Frantic women around shrieked to her to deliver up the money which she had received from the king; her dress was torn, and her hands were wounded in struggling with the infuriated savages; her consciousness was beginning to leave her again, as the pressure on her throat tightened, when a stout arm swept her assailants to right and left, a hand seized her, and she was rapidly drawn away from the place of danger. The crowd was closely wedged together, and she and her deliverer disappeared from those who were incensed against her, amongst a throng who knew nothing of what was being enacted a few ranks beyond them. Her conductor worked his way through the people, and in another moment, with an air of relief, he exclaimed, 'Praised be God and Bruder Klaus, we are safe now!'

'Nicholas!' exclaimed Gabrielle, 'how came you here?'

'When I heard you were with Madeleine, I followed. I have kept as close to you as possible since I saw you leave the hall of the Assembly. It was well that I did so.'

Gabrielle was sinking from fatigue and fear.

'Oh, Nicholas, I cannot endure any more. I shall die here.'

'No, no,' exclaimed he; 'lean against that wall.'

'Here!' he cried to a priest who was passing, 'M. le Curé, help!'

'What is the matter?' asked the priest, stopping.

Gabrielle suddenly revived, and exclaimed with an accent of appealing distress,—'M. Lindet, help me!'

'Who are you?' asked the deputy for the clergy of Évreux.

'She is called Gabrielle André,' answered Nicholas; 'can you do anything for her? She is worn out, faint, and ill.'

'Follow me,' said the curé; 'she shall have rest and refreshment in my lodgings; I know little Gabrielle well.'

Nicholas lifted the girl in his arms, held her very tight to his breast as he carried her, and did not deposit her till he had reached the priest's door.

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CHAPTER XXXIX.

By the fire-side, after having partaken of some food, Gabrielle recovered.

Lindet insisted on giving up to her his room and bed, and on sitting through the night in the kitchen with Nicholas.

The darkness had set in, and the rain continued to fall. The streets were still in commotion, and the young man who was anxious to know what had become of Madeleine, sallied forth in quest of her. He found the whole town in disorder. Women and men, armed with pikes, hatchets and cudgels, pursued and insulted the body-guard, which had received orders not to retaliate. The drum rattling in every street summoned the national guard to the Place d'Armes. But many of the guards, unable to sympathise with the exasperation against the body-guard, fomented by Lecointre, withdrew to their homes.

After the departure of the women, Mounier had remained at the Château. He firmly declared to the ministers, that the National Assembly required of the king his frank acceptation of the articles of the constitution and of the rights of men. He pointed out to them that at such a time of popular effervescence, it was most important that there should be no hesitation or prevarication; and that a refusal would drive the Parisians to measures of the utmost violence. He promised, if the king would sign the Declaration, to announce the fact to the people as a singular benefit, and he was convinced that it would greatly tend to diminish the popular excitement.

The king thereupon reassembled a cabinet council, and Mounier awaited the issue.

In the other parts of the palace the liveliest anxiety prevailed. The cries of rage vomited by the populace against the queen made it necessary to provide for her safety, and orders were given for preparations to be made for her departure, along with the dauphin, to Rambouillet. Five carriages issued from the royal stables, and drew up at the iron gates before the Orangery, and those of the Dragon. The Swiss opened the former gates, but the national guardsmen of Versailles rushed to them and shut them again, and refused to permit the Dragon gates to be opened at all.

The order to retire had been given at night-fall to all the troops drawn up in the Place d'Armes. The regiment of Flanders quitted its position and withdrew to the court of the Grandes-Ecuries. The body-guard defiled in turn; one detachment followed the avenue of S. Cloud, to betake itself to the Hôtel de Charrost, but the largest portion directed its course down the avenue de Sceaux, towards their own hôtel. Mud and stones were cast at them, and they were saluted with yells of hatred. Some of the guard losing control over themselves fired their pistols, hit three men, and tore the clothes of two others with their bullets. The national guard instantly discharged a volley, wounded one horse and killed another. The soldier mounted on the latter fell, and the women precipitated themselves upon him and would have killed him, had not two officers of the national guard come to his rescue.

Those who had fired on the body-guard returned to their barrack on the Place d'Armes, and demanded ammunition. It was refused. A lieutenant of Versailles threatened to blow out the brains of those who kept watch over it, unless it were given up. Thereupon a barrel of gunpowder was produced, and Lecointre loaded two cannons and ran them out opposite the balustrade, so as to command the flank of the troops which still covered the castle, and the body-guard who were returning to the square. The commandant of the body-guard, the Duke de Guiche, finding that the mob were resolved on attacking them in their hôtel, and that the national guard were making common cause with the people, deemed it advisable to return to the palace; but finding the grand entrance closed and cannon directed against them, they galloped down the Rue de Satory, and making a circuit entered the court of the Ministers by the Rue de la Surintendance. The mob, furious at their escape, flung themselves against the railing, vociferating loudly, and they would have forced the gates, had not a detachment of Swiss been marched to the reinforcement of the sentinels.

The town then presented a sinister appearance. The rain continued to fall, and the night was very dark. The shops were closed, with the exception of the bakers' and the vintners'. All the inhabitants of Versailles had fastened their doors and put shutters over their windows. The lamps at wide distances cast a lugubrious light on the patrols of the national guard, and the crowd of men and women in rags, covered with mud and dripping, who battered at every door, and demanded food and shelter.

Some of the crowd burst open the gates of the great stables, where the regiment of Flanders was stationed, and took refuge among the soldiers; others invaded the barrack of the French guard, and crowded into it out of the rain and cold. Four thousand, mostly women, occupied the hall of the Assembly, shouting, swearing, and making an uproar. Maillard alone could keep them quiet by continual haranguing. Some of the body-guard, those who had been to the Hôtel de Charrost, finding their position full of danger, resolved on joining their comrades. On issuing from their barrack they were pelted with stones; but they spurred their horses into a gallop and reached the court of the Ministers, though not without wounds.

Mounier waited on at the door of the council chamber to know the result of the deliberations within. It was nine o'clock, and nothing was decided. Then the young Duke of Richelieu arrived disguised like one of the mob, ragged, muddy, wet through, panting for breath, to announce to the king that a fresh swarm of people was on its way from Paris; he had mingled with them, had heard their threats against the queen, their vows of vengeance against the court. Shortly after the news reached the palace, that Lafayette was marching upon Versailles at the head of the Parisian militia or national guard.

The king's heart failed him, and at ten o'clock at night he signed the Declaration of Rights.

Mounier at once returned to the hall of the Assembly, expecting to find the delegates there, but they had been so incommoded by the women, who had intruded everywhere, that the Assembly had been adjourned, and the mob of women had been left in possession of the hall; one female occupied the president's chair, but she surrendered it to Mounier on his appearing. He sent immediately to the municipal officers to request them to summon the delegates by roll of drum.

Whilst this was being executed, he announced to the people that the king had accepted the articles of the constitution. The announcement elicited applause, and then the women asked, simply enough, if this acceptation would make bread more plentiful and cheaper. The president, ascertaining that many of these poor creatures had eaten nothing all day, sent round to the bakers' shops, and all the food that he could collect, wine, brandy, sausages, bread, was collected at the table, and was by him distributed among the famished multitude.

The great hall then presented the appearance of a huge eating-house. During this feast a message was transmitted to Mounier, announcing the approach of Lafayette and his army of Parisian guards. Mounier at once commissioned M. Goui-d'Arci to hasten to meet the general, and report to him the acceptation by the king of the Declaration of Rights.

As soon as it was known at the Château that the Parisian militia were on their way, orders were issued that the body-guard should quit the court of the Ministers and betake themselves to the terrace before the queen's apartments; by this means it was hoped that a collision would be avoided. During the absence of the Duke de Guiche, who had gone to the royal apartment for orders, but could get none, though he waited till two o'clock in the morning, the Marquis de Vilaines took the command. He transferred the squadron to the Tapis-Vert, leaving some videttes on the terraces. The Count d'Estaing came to him there, and assured him that it would be quite impossible for the guards to re-enter their hôtel before day-break, as the streets were in a tumult of excitement on the approach of Lafayette's soldiers. Acting on this advice, he withdrew his guards to Trianon for the rest of the night.

Lafayette, immediately on his arrival, which took place at midnight, went to the hall of the National Assembly, but finding it crowded with women, and the Assembly not sitting, he betook himself to the palace, which he found full of people waiting his arrival with anxiety, and endeavouring to read on his countenance whether his dispositions were hostile or pacific.

In the Œil-de-Bœuf, one of the courtiers said, 'There goes Cromwell;' to which Lafayette replied aptly, 'Sir, Cromwell would not have entered alone.'

He was perfectly calm, his cheeks fresh through encountering the wind, and his fair hair wet with rain. He entered the royal cabinet accompanied only by two commissioners of the Paris municipality. He informed the king of all that had taken place, and of the arrival of his army, and received the order for the national guard under him to occupy the posts which had formerly been held by the French guard; the body-guard and the Swiss were to retain the posts usually confided to them. He returned to the head of his column, to provide for the execution of this order, and the national guards thereupon took possession of the posts confided to them; the rest dispersed over the town in search of shelter. The men were worn out with their long and toilsome march, drenched with rain, and soiled with mud. They found an asylum in the churches of S. Louis, Notre-Dame, and the convent of the Recollects. One battalion invaded the deserted barracks of the body-guard, and quartered themselves comfortably therein.

It was three o'clock in the morning before every arrangement was complete. The Parisian national guardsmen were at their posts, and patrolled the streets, or reposed. The rabble of men and women had fallen asleep in the hall of the Assembly, in the barrack of the French guard, and in the taverns. Calm seemed to have been restored, and Lafayette then visited the Count of Luxembourg and the Marquis d'Aguesseau, to warn them that a battalion of his militia having taken possession of the hôtel of the body-guard, it would be impossible for the latter to return to it without running the risk of a fight.

The count at once sent a messenger in disguise to Trianon, with a recommendation to the Marquis de Vilaines to leave Versailles; he accordingly mounted his soldiers, and they retreated to S. Leger.

Lafayette, having again made the circuit of the town, and finding all quiet, went to the Hôtel de Noailles, and flung himself on a bed to snatch a few hours of rest, after having spent seventeen consecutive hours with every faculty strained to its utmost.

But what had Nicholas done? We left him sallying forth at night-fall into the streets in quest of his half-sister and stepmother.

Nicholas went direct to the Swiss guard-house, on the right side of the court of the Ministers, but found it impossible to enter the grating before the court. There was, however, a door opening into the building from the back street, and at this he applied, and asked to see his father. He was immediately admitted, and found, to his surprise, Madame Deschwanden and Madeleine sitting beside the fire drying their clothes. The former was talking in the most animated manner to a score of Swiss guardsmen, who laughed and joked with her, whilst the corporal looked on, and listened good-humouredly.

'But I won't go,' said madame, stamping on the ground; 'no human power shall persuade me to leave France for your detestable land of lakes and perpetual snows.'

'Now, wife,' said the corporal, 'what has been your object in coming here to Versailles?'

'To carry off the king to Paris,' answered she, sharply.

'What! whether he like it or not?'

'To be sure. We know best what is to his interest.'

'Very well, madame,' said the corporal, roguishly. 'Do to others as you would be done by. I am going to treat you precisely as you want to treat the king. To-morrow is my last day of service. To-morrow I reckon on obtaining my discharge. After to-morrow, as soon as possible, I intend to transport you from Paris to Lucerne, whether you approve or not; for I know best what is to your interest.'

This sally was greeted by the soldiers with applause.

'My faith!' exclaimed Madame Deschwanden, not at all taken aback, 'the cases are totally different; but that is what you Alpine bears can never perceive. In the case of his majesty, it is the ladies who insist, and he is too gallant to refuse our wishes. Whoever heard—unless he were a German—of a man dragging a woman after him into a wilderness against her will? Hah! Nicholas, my boy, what brings you here?'

'I have come in search of you and Gabrielle,—Madeleine, I mean?'

'Where is Gabrielle?' asked his sister, looking up.

'She is in safe keeping,' answered the lad; 'and, if you and my mother wish for shelter, you can have it in the same house.'

'That entirely depends,' said madame; 'we are exceedingly comfortable here.'

'But the house is that of a curé, and when I told him that you and Madeleine were out, he insisted on my inviting you to partake of his hospitality.'

'A curé, did you say, Nicholas?'

'Yes, mother.'

'Mon Dieu! To think of my leaving the society of soldiers for that of priests! I am much obliged to him, but scarlet coats are a more cheerful sight than black cassocks. Do you think I am going to put my head into the lion's mouth? I have plenty of naughty little things on my conscience, but I don't want to precipitate myself into a confessional to-night. Thank you, Nicholas; I prefer to remain here, where I can have a good laugh, I am too wet and cold to endure the cold water and freezing to which a curé would subject me. In Lent, yes—not now.'

Madame's determination was received by the soldiers with satisfaction.

'You are all priest-bitten,' said madame; 'that is the mischief of you Swiss. There was once a spider called the Tarantula, and there was at the same time another spider called Curatus, and these two went forth a scamper one day, and the former entered France and bit the people here, and set them all dancing; and the other spider crawled over the Alps, and spun his web in Switzerland, and nibbled at the good folk there, and made them all conscientious. Mon Dieu! what it is to be conscientious!'

The soldiers laughed heartily.

'Madeleine,' said Nicholas, 'will you come to Gabrielle?'

'No,' said the girl, 'I shall remain with my mother; at any rate, at present. What street are you in?'

'We are immediately opposite the opening into the Rue des Recollets, in the Rue du Vieux Versailles, with M. le Curé Lindet lodging in the house of the widow Maupied.'

'I shall see you to-morrow, Nicholas,' said the corporal. 'I will take good care of these two madcaps. You know that to-morrow my time of service is out. I shall be on duty early in the morning at the grand staircase, and that is the last office I shall perform for his gracious majesty. Then, huzza! we shall be off to the brave Switzerland, to the mountains and lakes! to the land of Werner Stauffacher, Erni of Melchthal, and Walter Fürst.'

'Never!' cried madame.

'We shall see,' said the corporal.

'We shall see,' said madame; 'a woman has a will of her own, and it is a stubborn one.'

'Good night!' said Nicholas.

At five in the morning, before daylight, a crowd was already prowling about the streets, and crossing the Place d'Armes, armed with pikes, spits, and scythes. Seeing some of the obnoxious body-guard as sentinels at the iron gates, they forced the national guards to fire on them; the latter obeyed, taking care not to hit them.

Fires were burning in the open square, and men and women were treading on one another to warm their hands and dry their clothes at the blaze. A hunchback on a tall horse was trotting up and down and haranguing the people. A very handsome man, with long black hair and beard, dressed in the costume of a Greek slave, with bare arms and legs and throat, gesticulated, put himself into postures, and recited scraps of poetry.

To understand what followed, certain particulars must be explained. The guard of the castle had been refused to Lafayette, and he had been given only the outer posts. Those of greater importance were confided to the Swiss and to the body-guard. These latter had received an order to retire, but they had been recalled when it was ascertained that their squadron had left Versailles, and were retained in the posts they had occupied the day before. During the 5th, all the iron gates of the Château had been shut and guarded by sentinels, so that the people had been unable to penetrate within the walls. It was otherwise on the morning of the 6th.

When the French guard had attended on the king, they had been charged with the custody of the railing in face of the grand court of entrance, and of the gates opening into the gardens. To facilitate their service, the gates of the Princes' court had been wont to be left open, so that they might pass through into the park to relieve the sentinels. When it was decided that the national guard should resume the posts formerly occupied by the French guard, the gates of the courts of the Ministers and of the Princes were opened as of old.

About half-past five the women, who had been sleeping in the barrack adjoining the Place d'Armes, woke up and issued forth into the square. Finding the gate into the grand court of entrance open, they passed through it, without the sentry of the national guard refusing them admission. On the left was the gate into the court of the Princes, guarded by two soldiers of the same militia corps; the women, probably more from curiosity than any other reason, penetrated into this court, and finding that it gave access to the park, ran out upon the terrace to admire the gardens and the ponds full of statuary.

These explorers were speedily followed by other women, and by the rabble of armed men; and the terrace was soon crowded with them, talking noisily beneath the queen's windows.

Their voices awoke the queen, who rang the bell for her lady-in-waiting, Madame Thibault. This woman looked out of the window, and told her majesty that the noise arose from a number of women who, having been unable to find shelter during the night, were walking about. This reply satisfied the queen, and Madame Thibault returned to her bed.

By this time the grand court was full of the rabble which began to arrive from all sides, and poured through the gates armed with cutlasses, pistols, guns, and pikes, vowing vengeance against the body-guard and the queen.

Major d'Aguesseau at once sent guards into the passage opening out of the court of the Princes into the Cour Royale. But, too few to withstand such a mass of people, they were driven back, and a horde of ruffians precipitated themselves into the Cour Royale, uttering horrible threats and cries of rage. One detachment rushed towards the vestibule leading to the apartments of the queen and the princesses; another flung itself upon the sentinel at the gate of the court, disarmed him, threw him down, and stabbed him with their pikes and sabres. The fellow in the costume of a Greek slave—his name was Jourdain, and he was an artist's model—rushed upon the guard, armed with a hatchet, and, jumping on his breast, chopped at his neck till the head came off and rolled among the feet of the by-standers.

Whilst this horrible scene was being transacted in the court, the band of ruffians who had run to the vestibule, found the door shut in their faces by the sentinels. They then directed their attack upon the marble staircase, which was defended by Corporal Deschwanden and another Swiss. Foremost among them was a militiaman of the guard of Versailles, a diminutive locksmith, bald-headed, with small sunken eyes, and his hands chapped and begrimed. The rioters assailed the Swiss, and by dint of numbers forced them up several steps. The corporal was disarmed and maltreated. The little locksmith, seeing him deprived of his gun and sword, sprang vindictively at him and struck him in the breast with a long knife he held in his hand; then leaving him, hanging over the balustrade bleeding and faint, he ran up the steps screaming and flourishing his knife, and the crowd poured after him to the landing, where several guards were prepared to defend the door into the hall of the king. One of the guards, Miomandre, descended a few steps, and asked the rabble, 'What, my friends! do you love the king, and seek to disturb him in his palace?'

Without answering him, the locksmith seized him by the belt, others caught him by the hair, and they would have flung him down the stairs to the ruffians below, had not his companions rescued him. Too few in number to oppose the crowd, the guard retired into the hall and shut and locked the door. Then the rioters endeavoured to break it open, and succeeded in staving in one of the panels. The soldiers blocked the hole with a wooden chest and kept them out.

Others attacked the door of the hall of the queen's guard, and, bursting it open, precipitated themselves into the room, and catching one of the guard who was unable to escape, cut him down with their swords, and Jourdain, leaping upon him, as he had on the other guard, hacked off his head, tossed it into the air, and caught it again with a shout of laughter. Another guardsman was dragged down by his belt, and drawn along the polished oak floor, through the blood of his comrade, to the head of the grand staircase, where Jourdain clamoured to get at him with his axe. A man struck at him with his pike, but the soldier caught the weapon, and drawing it towards him, by means of it regained his feet; then, with the energy of despair, he disarmed his adversary, and defended himself with the pike against the blows that were rained upon him, till he reached the door of the king's hall, which his comrades opened to receive him; and he was drawn in by one of the guard, whilst another fired in the face of the crowd and shot one man.

Another guardsman, Miomandre, was struck down with the handle of a pike, and one of the assailants, a man in the uniform of a soldier, wrenched from him his gun, and with the butt end struck him a blow which cut his head open and stunned him. Thinking him dead, the ruffian robbed him of his watch, and then deserted him. On his recovery, finding none of the mob near him, he crawled to the door and obtained admission.

The rioters were at that moment engaged in forcing an entrance into the ante-chamber of the queen's apartments. The sister of the queen's chambermaid, Madame Angué, hearing a rapping at the door, half opened it, and seeing four guardsmen covered with blood, shut and locked it again. They continued to rap, and she admitted them. They stationed themselves before the door of the queen's bedroom, and bade Madame Thibault and Madame Angué take their mistress to the king's apartment.

The rest of the guard, driven from the king's hall, betook themselves to the Œil-de-Bœuf, a gallery opening into the private apartments of the king, lighted by an oval window at one end, and having an oval mirror at the other. In this they took up their position, determined that the mob should only enter the cabinet of their sovereign over their bodies.

But by this time the news of the invasion of the palace had reached Lafayette, who sprang from his bed, and, without waiting for his horse, ran into the Place d'Armes to collect his militia. The first to arrive was the detachment of the Parisian militia, who had slept in the church of the Recollects. It came up under the conduct of its commandant, Doctor Gondran, and ranged itself in the marble court, under the windows of the king's apartments. At that moment, the fellow who had been shot by the guards was brought down and placed in a slanting position on the stairs, so that all might see the corpse. Next moment, one of the body-guard was dragged by his collar down the steps, and the mob were about to butcher him with their knives and swords beside the body of the labourer whose head had been split by a bullet, when Dr. Gondran appealed to his soldiers: 'Will you suffer an assassination to take place under your eyes?'

They replied at once that they would not permit it, and, running to the foot of the marble stairs, they rescued the guardsman from the hands of the populace.

The doctor then advanced his troop up the staircase, which was encumbered with ruffians carrying off chairs, mirrors, pictures, and any object worth securing that they had found in the rooms they had forced open. He made them lay down their spoil, and traversing the rooms, he knocked at the door of the Œil-de-Bœuf.

As the guard within did not obey, he exclaimed, 'Come, open to us, body-guard; we have not forgotten that you saved us French guards at Fontenoy.'

The door was thrown open. The king and his brave defenders were saved.

Nicholas had slept soundly on a mat before the fire, and Lindet had made himself a bed on a settle.

In the morning the two men rose refreshed, and the widow Maupied came in to make up the fire, and prepare breakfast.

Gabrielle appeared shortly after, quite recovered from her fright and exhaustion, her cheeks brilliant with colour, and her dress cleansed from the stains of the dirty road.

'So the whole family are here,' said Lindet, good-humouredly, to Nicholas; 'your father, mother, sister, and—Gabrielle.'

'Yes,' answered Nicholas; 'we have got a story in Switzerland of a young man who carried a goose with golden feathers through a town, and a woman ran behind to pluck one of the plumes; but, lo! her fingers stuck to the goose, and she could not detach them; then her mother, indignant at seeing her daughter run through the streets after a young man, rushed up to her, and caught her by the arms to arrest her; but, lo! the mother stuck fast. Then the husband, who was parish clerk, amazed at such an exhibition, ran after his wife and was fast directly. He was followed by the priest; and so they ran, a train of persons after the golden goose, unable to disengage themselves. I think Madeleine started the wild-goose chase in this instance, and my mother ran after her, dragging Gabrielle along with her, and——' he suddenly paused and reddened.

'And you ran after Gabrielle and caught her,' said the curé, laughing.

'You see, monsieur,' said Nicholas, still very red, 'it would not have done for me to have let those three women go into danger without me. What might have happened? Madeleine was nearly hung, and Gabrielle well-nigh strangled, and I dare say my mother was all but trampled upon by the crowd. It was a foolish thing for them to come—it was not Gabrielle's fault; but, as they came, I could not in conscience leave them unprotected. Madame Deschwanden generally knows how to take care of herself, and so, for the matter of that, does Madeleine; but what if they should be separated by the crowd from poor little Gabrielle? The thought frightened me. And very lucky—no! providential, I will say—was it that I did follow. When I saw her—' he nodded to the girl—'in the hands of those frenzied mad women, I vowed a mass to the honour of Bruder Klaus if he would obtain her release, and extend to her his protection.'

'Bruder Klaus,' repeated Lindet, with a puzzled look; 'who was he? or what was he?'

'Bruder Klaus was a hermit, a patriot, and a saint,' began Nicholas, delighted to find a hearer to whom he could recount the history of his patron. 'The holy brother lived a miraculous life without food——'

'Bruder Klaus must wait a moment,' interrupted Lindet; 'here is some one coming for you.'

In fact, Madeleine rushed in, her eyes full of tears, out of breath; she could only articulate, 'Nicholas! quick, your father is dying;' and then, leaning her head on the back of a chair, gasp for air and sob. When she had recovered sufficiently she added, 'The corporal wants to see a priest. M. le Curé, will you follow me?'

'I am ready,' answered Lindet, catching up his hat.

'Come, Gabrielle, come too,' said Madeleine; 'he asked after you.'

'Where is he?' asked Nicholas, his breast heaving convulsedly.

'He is in the gardens,—the park,' answered the girl. 'I found him—he had dragged himself out upon the terrace, and he made me take him out of the way of the crowd to the side of one of the sheets of water, and lay him on the grass.'

She could speak no more, for her tears burst forth anew. 'Dear old corporal!' she said between her sobs, 'he never knew how I reverenced and loved him. I would have followed him over the world.'

She drew Gabrielle after her, the priest followed. Nicholas ran forward in the direction indicated by the girl,—to the large pond or lake called the Pièce aux Suisses, and when Madeleine came up she found Nicholas supporting his head.

'My boy,' said the old corporal, faintly, lying with his head propped against his son's shoulder, 'whilst I have been alone I have had such a beautiful vision. Look yonder!' He pointed to a mass of cloud lit with the brilliant beams of the morning sun, standing crisply against a blue sky. 'It is changed,' continued the Swiss soldier, 'but you may see what has been. There was the Jungfrau, as truly as I have seen it from Interlaken. A little to the right, where you can still distinguish an elevation in the cloud, was the dazzling Silber-horn, with its glacier flashing in the sun. There was the Mönch, and there the precipice of the Eiger. Is it not beautiful still? but the outline is not what it was. God be praised that I have been shown my dear Alps once more. God be praised!'

He folded his hands, and his eyes still watched the cloud mountains gradually changing their forms in the roseate morning light.

'Shall I fetch you a doctor, father?' asked Nicholas, bending over him.

'It is of no use, my boy,' answered the old man; 'I have received my death-wound. I bear no resentment against him who dealt it. God willed that I should obtain my discharge from service this way, with a stroke of the knife instead of with that of a pen. Klaus! have you your flageolet with you?'

'Yes, father,' sobbed the boy.

'Then play me "Herz, mein Herz."'

The young man obeyed, but sadly and imperfectly, for his fingers refused to move correctly. However, the corporal sang to himself, disregardful of the false notes:

'Heart, my heart, why art thou weary,
Why to grief and tears a prey?
Foreign lands are bright and cheery;
Heart, my heart, what ails thee, say?'

And then he went abruptly to the verse—

'I should climb the rugged gorges
To the azure Alpine lake,
Where the snowy peak discharges
Torrents, that the silence break.
'I should see the old brown houses;
At the doors in every place,
Neighbours sitting, children playing,
Greetings in each honest face.'

'Here is the priest, father,' said Nicholas, interrupting the tune, and laying aside his flageolet.

The corporal instinctively put his hand to his brow, as a salute.

Gabrielle burst into tears and threw herself at his side, and put her arms around him. The old man patted her affectionately on the head and kissed her brow; then, raising his eyes to Madeleine, he asked her to take the place of Nicholas, who supported him. The girl readily obeyed, and pressed her stepfather's head to her bosom, whilst she endeavoured to stanch the blood that flowed from his wound with a handkerchief.

'Come here, Nicholas,' said the corporal; 'here, Gabrielle, dear child, look up. I want you to grant me a very great favour, little friend.'

Gabrielle looked earnestly in the weatherbeaten face of the dying man, endeavouring to read his meaning. He smiled at her, and took her hand in his.

'I have often longed, of late, to see the day when my Klaus should lead you to the altar; and I have loved to think how good a little wife you would be to him, and how dear a daughter you would prove to me. Gabrielle, will you allow me the satisfaction of joining your hands before I die?'

She did not answer, but trembled violently, and the tears rolled down her cheeks. The old man, without waiting for a formal reply, took the right hand of Nicholas, and placing it in that of Gabrielle, held them together, saying to the priest, with a grave smile,—'I call you to witness, Father, that I have betrothed these children. May God bless them both! And now leave me alone with the curé for a few moments.'

The young people withdrew, and sat down at the water's edge sorrowfully and silently.

When the priest made them a sign to approach, they returned to take the last kiss. The sun was shining down on the old man and glorifying his face; he held the crucifix between his hands clasped to his breast, and his eyes looked across the water, beyond the wooded hill that formed the horizon to the golden clouds floating in the blue sky, and his lips murmured:

'Heart, my heart, in weary sadness
Breaking far from Fatherland,
Restless, yearning, void of gladness,
Till once more at home I stand.'

Madeleine gently closed his eyes, as his spirit fled.

A few hours later, the king and queen bade farewell to Versailles, which they were destined never to see again, and were escorted by the crowd and by the national guard to Paris, destined to be their prison and their grave.

---

CHAPTER XL.

In June, 1790, the constitution of the Church of France was re-cast. Its revenues had been seized to pay the debts incurred by Louis XIV and his successors. The cahiers of the third order had asked with unanimity for this. Thus the endowments of the Church saved the country from bankruptcy. But though the third estate had expressed their desires for the confiscation of ecclesiastical property, they had protested their profound attachment for the religion in which they had been brought up. Consequently, the National Assembly undertook the maintenance of the Clergy by the State on certain conditions perfectly just and reasonable.

That those who had fattened on the 'patrimony of the poor' under the old system should revolt against a constitution which cut down their revenues, destroyed their privileges, and restrained their arbitrary exertion of authority, is not surprising.

Monseigneur de Narbonne, whose revenues and benefices had exceeded 80,000 francs, found himself suddenly reduced to live on 30,000 francs, and the bills for the re-furnishing of the palace for the reception of the prince were not yet paid.

The 16th of January, 1791, had been fixed by the municipality of Évreux for receiving the constitutional adhesion of the clergy. The bishop had addressed an epistle to the curés of his diocese, in which he resumed all the arguments directed against the civil constitution, and quoted the saying of Esprémesnil: 'It is a constitution unheard-of in the Church, which annihilates all jurisdiction, all ecclesiastical authority, and the Assembly, whence it emanates, can only be compared to the sovereign council of the Jews which crucified Jesus Christ.' He concluded by declaring that, for his part, he would never submit to it, and he bade all his clergy reject it as impious.

Monseigneur de la Ferronnais, Bishop of Lisieux, protested against the execution of the decree, till the opinion of Rome had been taken. He summoned an assembly to concert plans of resistance, and presided over it himself. It was, however, but thinly attended.

These examples and exhortations only touched the minority.

At Évreux, only one incumbent and three young curates refused the oath. The other seven incumbents and all the ecclesiastics exercising public functions, each in his parish, after the high mass, descended to the choir gates, and in a distinct voice pronounced their adhesion, in the presence of the people and the municipal authorities.

At Bernay, all the clergy, even those who, through not exercising ministries salaried by the State, were not required to give in their adhesion, took the oath, and a sermon was preached on the occasion by Lebertre, curé of La Couture. Some days after, the Abbé Deshayes preached to a crowded congregation in favour of the constitution, taking for his text the words of the Gospel, 'Peace be unto you;' and the municipality were so pleased with the discourse that they ordered it to be inscribed in the parish register.

At Andelys, the four perpetual curates took the oath. At Brionne, M. Bordeaux the priest, who had followed the same course, in a sermon defended the new constitution as being, if not faultless, at least an honest attempt to rectify old abuses. At Breteuil, on the contrary, M. Parizot de Durand refused his adhesion, and his two curates followed his example; but two other priests in the same place signed the protestation.

Monseigneur de Narbonne persisting angrily in his refusal, the episcopal seat of the department of Eure became vacant. The election of a fresh bishop was therefore necessary, and, for this purpose, a convocation of the electors was made.

The election was not direct, but in two degrees. The grand electoral college was composed of about six hundred members. Their number, the variety of their social situations, were conditions proper for assuring an independent and intelligent vote. The principle admitted, the election of a bishop,—who, it was required, had served in the diocese for fifteen years,—could be confided with some security to such a reunion of men. It was, however, vitiated by the fact that those most immediately under the authority of the bishop, viz. the clergy, had but a fractional influence in the election. This must be borne in mind when we read of the resignation and apostasy of some of the constitutional bishops during the reign of Terror.

Those who had most power in the electoral college were the men of advanced philosophic opinions, whereas those with deep religious sentiment were nowhere. Consequently, in some instances, those were elected bishops whose attachment to the fundamental doctrines of Christianity had been sapped by the dissolvent philosophy of the 18th century.

The electoral Assembly was convoked for Sunday, Feb. 13. High mass was celebrated in the cathedral by M. de Corval, curé of Petit-Andely, assisted by M. Rever, curé of Couteville. The service concluded, the procureur-général of the department opened the session, and said to the electors:—'We dispense with recalling to you your duties and obligations. We count on your patriotic zeal, and we are assured that in your selection you will be determined by your judgment as to whom is most worthy of confidence and of the esteem of the public.'

The votes were taken, and Thomas Lindet was proclaimed the bishop elect; 238 suffrages were given to him, and 180 to M. Rever.

A courier was immediately despatched to Paris to announce the result to Lindet, who at once posted to Évreux, and arrived there before the Assembly dispersed.

'Sir,' said the mayor to him, 'if the department of Eure had known an ecclesiastic more virtuous than you, it would have preferred him to you.'

On the 15th of February, the roar of cannons, the ringing of the cathedral and the parish-church bells, announced to the people that they had a new bishop,—a representative of the new law, of liberty, justice, and equality. The arrival at the highest ecclesiastical function of a congruist curé who had not been preceptor or confessor to princes, a man without noble birth or fortune to recommend him, was a spectacle proper to excite the enthusiasm of the nascent democracy.

The bishop elect was, however, as yet without canonical confirmation and episcopal consecration.

His institution ought to have been asked of the Archbishop of Rouen, his metropolitan, but the Cardinal de la Rochefoucauld was out of his see, having refused the oath, and was not yet replaced.

This situation could not be prolonged. The presence of the constitutional bishop in Évreux became daily more necessary. The directory of the department of Eure addressed to Lindet an invitation to come and take possession of his diocese as soon as possible, and requested him to demand institution at the hands of any bishops of his choice.

Thomas Lindet hastened to obey. He was consecrated on the 6th of March, 1791, in the chapel of the Oratoire, at Paris, along with the Bishops of Beauvais, Châteauroux, and Moulins, by Gobel, Bishop of Lydda, and the Bishops of Quimper and Dax, who had subscribed to the constitution. A few days after he joined in consecrating the Bishop of the Seine-Inférieure, in the cathedral of Rouen, and was himself afterwards confirmed by the new metropolitan.

On Sunday, March 27, Thomas Lindet was solemnly installed in the beautiful cathedral of Évreux, before a vast congregation. After vespers a Te Deum was sung as an act of thanksgiving for the convalescence of the king, and the same day he despatched a circular round the diocese, to announce his intention of making a pastoral visitation.

He left the cathedral, when the service was concluded, by the private door into the palace gardens. It was the same door through which he had passed the night that he had been locked in the minster.

But his mind did not revert to the past: it was occupied with the future. He had taken his place at the helm of the vessel, and he foresaw breakers ahead, and felt that the gale was rising from every point of the compass. He was not sanguine. On the contrary, he was dispirited; his elevation to the episcopal throne did not jump with his wishes, for Lindet was not personally ambitious.

He was resolved to do his best, to work the diocese thoroughly, and to set an example of simplicity of life and devotion to the causes nearest his heart—Liberty and Catholicism. But, at the same time, he owned to himself, that if he found resistance among the clergy and laity, his heart might fail him. He was impetuous, but he had not the gift of patient endurance. That he would find some opposition to his claims was certain, but it could be overcome by conciliatory conduct and by diligent discharge of his duties, unless—and there rose before him a prospect which made him quake—unless the pope should pronounce against the Constitutional Church.

As this prospect arose to dismay him, he encountered the ex-bishop, De Narbonne-Lara. Both were in episcopal purple, with pectoral cross and cape; Lindet wore as well a lace surplice.

'I have expected to meet you,' said the ex-bishop. 'Indeed, I have waited here on purpose.'

'Monseigneur,' said Lindet, 'I am glad of the opportunity of speaking to you, that I may give expression to my regret that you should have felt yourself unable to take the constitutional oath, and thus have forced me into incurring responsibilities which I tremble to feel upon my shoulders.'

'This is nonsense,' said De Narbonne; 'you have courted it. You curés have been driving matters on to this point for the purpose of stepping on our necks into our thrones.'

'I beg your pardon,' answered Lindet; 'you are altogether mistaken; we had no ambition except for the Church, for ourselves individually none,—none whatever. For myself, I may assure you, my Lord, I had neither the wish nor the expectation of being a bishop, least of all of taking your place.'

'You a bishop!' exclaimed De Narbonne, his red face flaming with passion. 'Do you call yourself a bishop? Pshaw! who will accept you as their prelate?'

Lindet, determined not to resent the insolence of the ex-bishop, replied with moderation: 'You cannot be unaware, Monseigneur, that the vast majority of the clergy in this diocese have signed the Constitution.'

'Wait a bit,' said De Narbonne, threateningly; 'when his holiness speaks, they will be of another mind.'

'Are you sure that the holy father will refuse to recognise the Constitutional Church? Why should he? We hold the Catholic faith; we have the same orders, sacraments, and ritual. There is absolutely no divergence on any religious point between the Church of the old régime and the Church now. The only point on which a difference has arisen has been a political question,—a political one only.'

'Be the point what it may, he will anathematise you.'

'Then,' answered Lindet, 'alas for religion! At present, the Church has advanced, haltingly, I admit; for that, the like of you are responsible; but it has advanced with the tide that is setting in, and, what is more, it can control and direct that tide, and no other power but the Church can, at the present time, do that. Everything is in flux except the faith, and that will be the rallying-point. We shall, may be, have a republic, but it will be a Christian republic. If the holy father were to throw the apple of discord among us now, if he were to break into two factions the Church of France, by forbidding the faithful to accept our ministrations, then he will unchain the hell-dogs, and roll France in blood. My Lord! it is your own doing that this see has become vacant; it is through no influence exerted by me, that I have been elected your successor. The times are threatening. I shall have to bear on my shoulders the burden of this diocese in a period of extraordinary excitement. I pray you give me your episcopal blessing for the work. If ever you see your way towards accepting the Constitution, I will vacate the see at once. I pray your fatherly blessing.' He bent on one knee.

'No,' said De Narbonne, sulkily; 'my blessing you shall never have. My advice I give you, as you once gave me yours. I warn you that shortly all you constitutional bishops will be anathematised by Rome, all the priests will be ordered, on pain of excommunication, to abstain from acknowledging you, and the faithful will be forbidden to accept the ministrations of bishops and priests who have taken this accursed oath, at the risk of damning their souls eternally.'

'My God!' exclaimed Lindet.

'Yes, such will be the action of the holy see.'

'Then,' said Lindet, vehemently, 'if that be the conduct of the successor of S. Peter, it is high time that his supremacy should be modified into a primacy; lest at some future occasion, relying on powers he has assumed, he use them to wreck the Church. We have just upset the principle of absolute monarchy in the field of politics, we must overthrow the same principle in the domain of religion.'

He turned from the ex-bishop, and entering the palace, shut himself into the library and wrote a letter to the pope, imploring him to use caution, and not, on a point of trifling consequence—the disendowment of the Church—to wreck Christianity in the whirlpool of the Revolution.

It need hardly be said that his letter remained unanswered, and that the prognostications of the ex-bishop were verified.

---

CHAPTER XLI.

In 1816, just twenty-seven years after Corporal Deschwanden's death, as related in the last chapter but one, on a still summer evening, a little party sat in the veranda of a brown timber-built house at Kreutzmatt above Lucerne. The veranda was simply one of three open galleries overgrown with vine-branches, common to Swiss houses in the Four Cantons. Against this gallery, over the door, leading into the house from the garden, was a painting, of no high type of art, representing a tall man with dark hair, and a face of deadly pallor, the eyes sunk and red with weeping; habited in a snuff-coloured garb, with loose sleeves and no collar, holding in one hand a staff. Under this painting was written in German characters, 'Heiliger Bruder Klaus, bitte für uns.' Looking from the veranda, the eye swept across the goodly city of Lucerne, its quaint watchtowers capped with red tiles, and the twin taper spires of S. Leger; across the still blue lake, unruffled, like a gigantic mirror, to Pilatus, its serrated crest flushed with red evening light, crisply cutting the evening sky. To the right was the rolling green country stretching towards the setting sun; but to the left, above the water, towered the glistening peaks of the Engelberg Alps, their glaciers blazing in the last fires of day.

In the gallery are five persons: one an aged woman with white hair, and a grey countenance. Her face is expressive only of childish good-humour. It is Madame Berthier; she sits in this gallery every fine day, and looks at the lake and the mountains and laughs. She has lost her memory almost completely, every trace of her old bitterness is gone. On her lap is a little girl of three years old, dark-haired, black-eyed, the image of Gabrielle; and madame fondles her, plays with her, calls her Mädel, which is the short, we suppose, for Madeleine, and kisses her oftener than the child altogether likes.

Gabrielle is there, a middle-aged woman, with a plain gold ring on the third finger of the left hand, spinning diligently. She is dressed like a Swiss peasantess, with white sleeves and a black bodice, her hair elaborately plaited behind and fastened with a silver spoon.

Leaning against the balcony is Nicholas, grown rather stout, playing a flageolet to a little boy in a brown suit of very stiff cloth, jacket, waistcoat, breeches, all one colour, and all old-mannish, wearing a brown knitted cap on his head;—a little boy with very large dreamy blue eyes and a shock of light flaxen hair, his head thrust through a large rosary, like a necklace, holding his hands behind his back, and singing lustily with a clear sweet voice—

'Heart, my heart, why art thou weary,
Why to grief and tears a prey?
Foreign lands are bright and cheery;
Heart, my heart, what ails thee, say?'

Coming along the path from Lucerne, with his long black shadow going before him, is an old man, very thin, wearing a long grey coat, with snow-white hair.

He comes to the gate of the garden, halts there, looks up inquiringly at the gallery, sees the painting of Bruder Klaus, nods his head, as if acknowledging that this accords with directions that have been given him, opens the wicket and enters the garden.

Nicholas at once, turning to his wife, says, 'Gabrielle, here comes a stranger. Who can he be?'

Directly they hear the tap of the old man at their door, and both Nicholas and his wife run down stairs to answer it. The door is at once opened, and their eyes rest on the thin stranger. His face is wrinkled and worn, the cheeks sunk, the complexion pale, the eyes bright, restless, and intelligent. He raises his right hand, and Madame Nicholas at once observes its delicacy and the beauty of the fingers.

The stranger does not speak, but looks attentively at Gabrielle, whilst a sad smile flickers about his thin lips. She raises her eyes to his, and all at once recognition flashes into them, her countenance lights up, and she falls into his arms with the cry of—'It is M. Lindet!'

When the first greetings were over, Gabrielle's question was: 'How is everything now at Bernay, at dear old Bernay, which I shall never see again?'

'Do you want to see it?'

'I do not know; perhaps it would be too painful, and I am so happy here.'

'I have come,' said Lindet, 'to ask you, Gabrielle, to shelter me for a while under your roof, in my time of need, as once I sheltered you. I am exiled from France, now that the royal family has been restored.'

'Shelter you!' exclaimed Gabrielle; 'of course I will, with joy and love, and Nicholas will never weary of serving you to the best of his abilities; I have told him what you did for me, and he has learned to love your name.'

THE END.