Impatient, restless little Henriette, between the bars of her cage, is looking out wonderingly on a re-made world. What does it mean? Release? the easy path to her lost Louise?
Pray Heaven it does––
CHAPTER XVII
PRISON DELIVERY––AND AN ENCOUNTER
The jailers deliver the keys; the mob pours tumultuously into the female prison. What cries of joy, what sobs of relief from the saner inmates, as they try to think their new, almost incredible jail delivery! What stony, uncomprehending glances or what wild shrieks from the maniacal! Amid this confused throng Picard, who has entered with the crowd to wait upon his mistress, presents a comic figure. He has arrayed himself in the red-and-white striped garb of the proletariat, is trying his best to look a Revolutionary, though all he gets for it are kicks and wallops!
Sense and nonsense mix strangely in the proceedings of the mob. They set up a rude court headed by two horny-handed butchers, the object of which is to separate the innocent from the guilty. But the new red-and-white cockade––superseding the green cockades of the first battle––is the best passport to their favor. Inmates whose friends have provided them with 109 these Revolutionary badges, are generally turned loose. Shouting and laughing in their glee, they dance out of the prison.
Picard has provided Henriette with his badge, whilst Sister Genevieve and the Doctor vouch to her good character. Henriette kisses the cockade as a sign of fealty to the new order. The brawny judges let her pass. She runs merrily out past the harmless gauntlet of the friendly pikes and lances.
Not so Picard––That luckless valet tries to sneak out past the big chopper of the brawny butcher-judge.