Calmly, quite undisturbed, the foolish Baker continued to “rat-tat-tat” with a stick on the curb, then as the “Ca Ira” beats resounded above him, his own squatting body began to sway with the music in a heightened absurdity. Picard had run off. He was convinced these people were crazier than any of those in the mad cells of Salpetriere....
JACQUES FORGET-NOT, SWEARS VENGEANCE ON THE FAMILY OF THE DE VAUDREYS.
THE COUNT DE LINIERES AND THE CHEVALIER DE VAUDREY HEAR HIS THREATS.
Long since Henriette had evaded the worse sights and sounds by creeping as best she could along the side walls of the buildings, watching her chance to get away from the revelers. Again, at the street corner, another swirl passed over her, knocking her down. Ruefully she picked herself up again.
The throng had passed by completely, leaving but a drunken fool prancing here and there, or a scant winrow of half-prostrate figures. Henriette ran with all her might to the only refuge she knew––her old faubourg lodgings.
The middle-aged landlady who in days agone had fetched the guard to subdue Danton’s would-be assassins, and who likewise had resented Robespierre’s prying as to the identity of Henriette’s visitor, studied the girl at first a bit quizzically. Released from Salpetriere, eh? Was she the same sweet, pure Henriette she knew? Yes, the little Girard––la petite Girard––looked to be the same hard-working, respectable seamstress person of yore, only that she seemed very weak and about to collapse!
The landlady folded Henriette within one stout arm.