At the mention of a church, Clarisse approached the window. She recognised the building; it was St. Gervais Church, on whose portal could be read in large letters the sadly ironical inscription: "National Property, to be let as a Warehouse."
At Clarisse's request Urbain had placed an ink-stand and blotting-paper on the table, and Clarisse hearing it was ready turned round joyfully. "At last I can write to Olivier!" she thought.
She then seated herself at the table and began to write, while Thérèse was making a tour round the room, taking a survey of the furniture. Suddenly catching sight of an illustrated paper on a sofa, she took it up to pass the time away. It was five weeks old, and had been preserved no doubt on account of the illustrations. Its pages gave an elaborate account of the Fête of the Supreme Being of which she had heard Olivier speak, and against which he had so vehemently protested during his visit to the prison of La Bourbe. It had taken place, then?
She became interested and commenced reading to herself in a low voice: "Description of the Procession.—Fireworks at the Fountain of the Tuileries.—Typical Groups.—Arrest of a Chouan.—Popular Indignation!"
"I saw that myself," interrupted Urbain.
Thérèse turned to the servant, who was now dusting the mantelpiece, and asked him why the man had been arrested.
"Why? Because he cried: 'Down with the scaffold!'"
The words struck Clarisse, who looked up from her writing. Only the day before the fête Olivier had reproached the French for not daring to throw that cry in the teeth of the Government of Terror. Thérèse, seeing her aunt look up from her writing, was struck with the same coincidence, and both, almost in the same breath, questioned the domestic, who said that, as far as he could remember, the young man appeared to be about twenty. He had been arrested at once to save him from the crowd, who would otherwise have torn him to pieces.
"His name? his name?" they both gasped.
That Urbain could not tell them. Clarisse rose, mastering her emotion, and with all a mother's solicitude set herself to reassure Thérèse. Yes, they both had the same thought, hadn't they? She also was thinking of Olivier, but it could not be he. He would have written to them. Why, it was six weeks ago, and his visit to the prison would have been remembered! They would have been involved, but they had, on the contrary, been in no way made to feel it, and had been treated with every consideration.