"You frighten me!" exclaimed Madam Desmarais, trembling. "But no; you are a mother, and women in your condition escape the scaffold."
"The child protects the mother. So I address this writing to my child, to whom, perchance, I may owe my life. Camille Desmoulins, Danton, those illustrious men, those lofty patriots, were all sacrificed yesterday. My husband has equalled them in civic virtue, he may be judged and guillotined to-morrow. Sad outlook!"
"Ah, blood, always blood!" murmured Madam Desmarais, her heart sinking within her. "Good God, have pity on us."
"Good mother, let me read you a few lines from the memoirs I have written for my child on the events of our times:
"'You are born, dear child, in times without their like in the world. And when your reason is sufficiently grown, you will read these pages written by me under the eyes of a loving mother, while your father was gone to fight for the independence of our country, and for the safety of the Revolution and the Republic.
"'Perhaps some day you will hear curses and calumnies leveled at this heroic epoch in which you were born. Perhaps for a day, but for a day only, you will see walk again the phantoms of the Church of Rome and of royalty.
"'Christ, the proletarian of Nazareth said, The chains of the slaves will be broken; all men shall be united in one fraternal equality; the poor, the widows and the orphans shall be succored.
"'And now the time has arrived.
"'Those who called themselves the ministers of God continued, for eighteen centuries, to possess slaves, serfs and vassals. In one day the Revolution has realized the prophecy of Christ, misconstrued by the priests.'"
"True, true, my daughter," assented Madam Desmarais, "the Republic did in one day what the Church had for centuries refused to do. It was the place of the Church at least to set the example in freeing the slaves, the serfs and the vassals who belonged to it before the Revolution. May it be accursed for its failure to do so."