Edward answered all very vaguely, for he never had any great relaxation of tongue; but the stranger caught at the admission that he had been only a fortnight in England, exclaiming, "Then you must have been in France when Rochelle surrendered."
"I was," answered the young gentleman: "it is not quite three weeks since I left that city."
"Ha!" said the stranger, eyeing him from head to foot. "Will you favor me, sir, by telling me the state of the place and the condition of its inhabitants? It is a subject in which I take a great interest. Methinks they surrendered somewhat promptly when succor was so near."
"Not so, sir," replied Edward. "When men have nothing to eat,—when they have seen their fathers, and their brothers, and their mothers, and their sisters, die of famine in their streets,—when the very rats and mice of a city are all consumed, and the wharves have been stripped of mussels and limpets,—they must either die or surrender. There is no use of dying; for death is the worst sort of capitulation, and the city becomes the enemy's without even a parchment promise."
"Ay; and was it really so bad?" said the other.
"More than one-third of the inhabitants had died," said Edward; "another third were dying; and the rest were so feeble that the walls might be said to be manned by living corpses."
"You excite my curiosity and my compassion," said the other. "May I ask if you had any command in Rochelle?"
"None," replied the young gentleman. "By accident I was in it for a day during the siege, and saw how much they could endure. I was in it also immediately after the siege, and saw how much they had endured. Though Rochelle fell at last, her defence is one of the most glorious facts in French history."
The stranger looked down upon the ground and replied nothing for several minutes; but his companion with whom he had been conversing familiarly took up the conversation, and asked after several of the citizens of Rochelle whom Edward was personally acquainted with or knew by name. The solemn words, "He is dead," "She is dead," "All the family died by famine," "He died of the pestilence," were of sad recurrence. "But then," the stranger remarked, "we know that Guiton is alive; for he signed the treaty."
"He tried hard to die first," said Edward. "But nothing seemed to break his iron frame, and the people became clamorous."