"Embrace; the Revolution declares you sisters!"
Leaving the frightened women cowering, he again seized Geneviève as a prop, and clearing the throng, rolled up the street, invoking each window with the exulting shout:
"Vive la Raison!"
While Cramoisin and Boudgoust combated for the relinquished vat, Jambony, serving the spigot, impudent and mocking, bellowed:
"Citoyens, it is not enough to wipe out cults: we must level the steeples. Steeples are aristocratic. What's the use of making Temples of Reason of the ci-devant churches if steeples are to lord it over us. Steeples are the princes of the city!"
"Citoyen, the Section des Bonnes Nouvelles has already done so!" a woman cried.
"Then Vive la Section des Bonnes Nouvelles!"
With the departure of Javogues the crowd grew noisy, disputing and haranguing. From the top of the vat, which he had gained, Cramoisin bellowed in vain to them to listen to his ideas on the primeval innocence and the community of women. The throng had turned to another who, applauding the laws of burial, declared, beyond interring each citoyen under the simple tricolor flag, perfect equality could be obtained only by identical tombstones.
All at once la Mère Corniche, who had remained on the fringe of the crowd, shrank into it with an exclamation of fear. At the entrance of No. 38 appeared Nicole. On her face was the brooding and the color of death. For a moment she leaned against the wall, searching uneasily among the crowd. Then, still seeking, she approached, swaying from side to side, and her eye fell on la Mère Corniche—and passed.
"It is not I," the old woman muttered, still trembling from the suspense. "It's Cramoisin."