It was necessary to search the road in order to make sure that no seditious party was in waiting to carry off the prisoners.
In the midst of all this commotion and of all these painful scenes, as I was watching the carriages disappear along the Soissons road, I felt someone take hold of my hand, and, turning round, I found it was my mother.
"Come," she said in a whisper, making a sign with her head as she spoke, and I knew something important lay behind that word "Come," and her gesture.
She seemed terribly agitated, and she led me straight home.
[CHAPTER V]
My mother and I conspire—The secret—M. Richard—La pistole and the pistols—The offer made to the brothers Lallemand in order to save them—They refuse—I meet one of them, twenty-eight years later, at the house of M. le duc de Cazes.
My mother was the widow of a general, and she had not been able to witness the insult paid to men who wore the same uniform and the same epaulettes that my father had worn without being deeply distressed.