In exitu Israel

by S. Baring-Gould

'Can we not escape yet?'

'No. Impossible; I wish we could, but the crowd is too dense. We must rejoin Madeleine first, or she will not know what has become of us.'

The sun glared down on the moving torrent of angry life. It was like a viscous stream of lava poured from a volcano; the sun flashed on bayonets, axes, large knives which had been attached to poles and made into rude pikes.

The flashes from the weapons, as the sun lit them, resembled leaping flames above the lava flood. The heat began to dissolve the wax bust, the black crape attracted the heat unnecessarily, and it slowly dissolved into a shapeless mass. Nevertheless it was borne along, its bearers being unconscious of the transformation that was being effected in their idol.

The stream pursued its course along the streets of S. Martin, S. Denis, and S. Honoré, and spread out into a tossing lake in the Place Vendôme, where lived several of the revenue-farmers, but not Foulon, whose house was in the Rue du Temple.

Here was drawn up a detachment of dragoons, which charged the people, and drove them back into the streets that opened on the square. A French guardsman was trampled under the feet of the horses and killed.

Nicholas took the opportunity of the dissolution of the compact mass to disengage himself and Gabrielle from the mob, and to escape with her down the street before the Convent of the Feuillants.

'Where is Madeleine?' asked Gabrielle.

'Madeleine!' exclaimed Nicholas, standing still and looking round; 'I really do not know where she is. But it does not matter; let us go into the gardens of the Tuileries. It was her wish, you may remember, that we should go there after our visit to the Palais Royal, and doubtless she will make the best of her way there in the expectation of meeting with us.'

They entered the beautiful gardens before the palace, and Gabrielle would have admired the flowers at any other time, but her nerves had been somewhat shaken by the excitement she had gone through, and she asked Nicholas to let her sit down on the first seat they came to.