We are all at peace and happy now, but whenever my thoughts fly back to that morning, whenever the ears of memory recall those hideous yells of fury and of hate, coupled with the equally horrible cries for pity which pierced through the walls behind which the six of us were crouching, trembling, and praying, whenever I think of it all my heart still beats violently with that same nameless dread which held it in its deathly grip then.
Hundreds of men, women, and children were massacred in the prisons of Paris on that day—it was a St. Bartholomew even more hideous than the last.
Maman was trying in vain to keep our thoughts fixed upon God—papa sat on the stone bench, his elbows resting on his knees, his head buried in his hands, but maman was kneeling on the floor with her dear arms encircling us all, and her trembling lips moving in continuous prayer.
We felt that we were facing death—and what a death!—O, my God!
Suddenly the small grated window—high up in the dank wall—became obscured. I was the first to look up, but the cry of terror which rose from my heart was choked ere it reached my throat.
Jean and André looked up too, and they shrieked, and so did Marguerite, and papa jumped up and ran to us and stood suddenly between us and the window like a tiger defending its young.
But we were all of us quite silent now. The children did not even cry, they stared wide-eyed—paralysed with fear.
Only maman continued to pray, and we could hear papa's rapid and stertorous breathing as he watched what was going on in that window above.