In exitu Israel

by S. Baring-Gould

'Anathema!'

'And now,' she continued, lowering her arm and descending from the bier, 'you are good, pray for the unfortunate.' She placed herself before the coffin, faced it, and extending both her arms like a priest at the beginning of the Credo, she cried, 'Pray for the dead, that his sins may be blotted out, and his iniquities be forgiven, Miserere!' The versatile crowd responded, falling on their knees:—

'Miserere!'

'Eternal rest give to him, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon him!'

'Miserere!'

'I must see his face,' said Madame Berthier, casting aside the black crape and throwing the pall from the coffin. 'I must see my father once more; and I must give him his last kiss. Open the coffin.'

Again the officers interposed; but the poor woman would listen to no reason. 'Berthier in his malice would not tell me that my father was dying, he did not announce to me his death, lest I should kiss him. Let me take my last look, my last kiss. I insist. Have I not a right, do I not draw my blood from his veins? Why am I not to see him?'

She was thrust aside by some of the undertaker's officials with some violence; but the mad creature was as resolute as were they. She turned to the people and appealed to them for help. 'They will not let me see my father. They kept me from his bedside when he was ill; they held from me the news that he was dead; and now they refuse me a last look, and a last kiss. Help, good people! you, who set me at liberty when I was locked up in the Bastille; you will not suffer these hirelings to stand between a daughter and her father!'

The appeal was not made in vain; the Suisse at the gate was thrown down, and the mob poured up the steps to the assistance of the poor lady. In the meantime, an attempt was made to remove the coffin into the church, but a sturdy butcher intercepted his body between it and the door, and frustrated the attempt.