The old man shook his head in token of dissent, while he muttered to himself,—
“Auerstadt may be a proud memory to some; to me it is a word of sorrow and mourning. The story is but a short one; alas! it has but one color throughout:—
“Count Louis de Meringues—of whom you have doubtless heard that he rode as postilion to the carriage of his sovereign in the celebrated flight to Varennes—fell by the guillotine the week after the king's trial; the countess was executed on the same scaffold as her husband. I was the priest who accompanied her at the moment; and in my arms she placed her only child,—an infant boy of two years. There was a cry among the crowd to have the child executed also, and many called out that the spawn would be a serpent one day, and it were better to crush it while it was time; but the little fellow was so handsome, and looked so winningly around him on the armed ranks and the glancing weapons, that even their cruel hearts relented, and he was spared. It is to me like yesterday, as I remember every minute circumstance; I can recall even the very faces of that troubled and excited assemblage, that at one moment screamed aloud for blood, and at the next were convulsed with savage laughter.
“As I forced my way through the dense array, a rude arm was stretched out from the mass, and a finger dripping with the gore of the scaffold was drawn across the boy's face, while a ruffian voice exclaimed, 'The Meringues were ever proud of their blood; let us see if it be redder than other people's.' The child laughed; and the mob, with horrid mockery, laughed too.
“I took him home with me to my presbytère at Sèvres,—for that was my parish,—and we lived together in peace until the terrible decree was issued which proclaimed all France atheist. Then we wandered southwards, towards that good land which, through every vicissitude, was true to its faith and its king,—La Vendée. At Lyons we were met by a party of the revolutionary soldiers, who, with a commissary of the Government, were engaged in raising young men for the conscription. Alphonse, who was twelve years old, felt all a boy's enthusiasm at the warlike display before him, and persuaded me to follow the crowd into the Place des Terreaux, where the numbers were read out.
“'Paul Ducos,' cried a voice aloud, as we approached the stage on which the commissary and his staff were standing; 'where is this Paul Ducos?'
“'I am here,' replied a fine, frank-looking youth, of some fifteen years; 'but my father is blind, and I cannot leave him.'
“'We shall soon see that,' called out the commissary. 'Clerk, read out his signalement.'
“'Paul Ducos, son of Eugène Ducos, formerly calling himself Count Ducos de la Brèche—'
“'Down with the Royalists! à bas the tyrants!' screamed the mob, not suffering the remainder to be heard.