"What can we expect otherwise," said he, "with Louis the Fourteenth for king and Louvois for his minister, and Père la Chaise for his confessor, and Madame de Maintenon for his confidante and adviser? A storm is gathering overhead, but never mind—there is a heaven higher than all." These words checked us; but youthful spirits soon rise, and the impression did not last long. I now seemed walking on air, for I loved and was loved by Madeleine.
A few days after our return from Beaucaire, Marie Lefevre burst in on us with troubled looks, and exclaimed,
"Have you seen my boy?"
"No!" exclaimed we all.
"Then something has befallen him," cried she, wringing her hands. "We have lost sight of him."
We gathered about her, full of pity, and asked where he had last been seen.
"Near Les Arènes."
"He may have fallen into some pit, or lost himself among the dungeons," said my mother. "We will go and help you to find him."
So she and I accompanied Marie, who was crying bitterly, and made frequent inquiries for him by the way.
When we got inside that vast, circular inclosure, we agreed that Marie should explore one side and we the other, and thus meet at the other end. This took us some time, for you must know that it consists of two stories, each of sixty arcades, seventy feet high; and under its great arches and pillars are many vaulted chambers and passages, wherein good Christians have been confined; and again, wherein other good Christians have found asylums in time of hot persecution. Within the amphitheatre were originally thirty-two rows of seats, which would accommodate at least twenty thousand spectators that had a mind to feast their eyes on scenes of blood in the central arena. I looked with curiosity at this place, which I had never so thoroughly visited before. Some of the dens were still in use for the bulls that were baited on Sundays, and others seemed lairs for rogues and vagabonds; but there was many a corner which, as I said to my mother, would afford a good hiding-place in time of danger, and one, especially, in which I thought a fugitive might defy detection (though I had detected it).