Not daring to inform the Père Michel of where I had been, I could not ask him for any explanation; and thus was I left to pick up from the scattered phrases of the crowd what was the guilt alleged against the criminals. In many cases the simple word "Chouan," of which I knew not the import, was all I heard; in others jeering allusions to former rank and station would be uttered; while against some the taunt would imply that they had shed tears over others who fell as enemies of the people, and that such sympathy was a costly pleasure to be paid for but with a life's-blood. Such entire possession of me had these awful sights taken, that I lived in a continual dream of them. The sound of every cart-wheel recalled the dull rumble of the hurdle—every distant sound seemed like the far-off hum of the coming multitude—every sudden noise suggested the clanking drop of the guillotine! My sleep had no other images, and I wandered about my little round of duties pondering over this terrible theme.
Had I been less occupied with my own thoughts, I must have seen that Père Michel was suffering under some great calamity. The poor priest became wasted to a shadow; for entire days long he would taste of nothing; sometimes he would be absent from early morning to late at night, and when he did return, instead of betaking himself to rest, he would drop down before the crucifix in an agony of prayer, and thus spend more than half the night. Often and often have I, when feigning sleep, followed him as he recited the litanies of the breviary, adding my own unuttered prayers to his, and beseeching for a mercy whose object I knew not.
For some time his little chapel had been closed by the authorities; a heavy padlock and two massive seals being placed upon the door, and a notice, in a vulgar handwriting, appended, to the effect, that it was by the order of the Commissary of the Department. Could this be the source of the Père's sorrow? or did not his affliction seem too great for such a cause? were questions I asked myself again and again.
In this state were matters, when one morning, it was a Saturday, the Père enjoined me to spend the day in prayer, reciting particularly the liturgies for the dead, and all those sacred offices for those who have just departed this life.
"Pray unceasingly, my dear child—pray with your whole heart, as though it were for one you loved best in the world. I shall not return, perhaps, till late to-night; but I will kiss you then, and to-morrow we shall go into the woods together."
The tears fell from his cheek to mine as he said this, and his damp hand trembled as he pressed my fingers. My heart was full to bursting at his emotion, and I resolved faithfully to do his bidding. To watch him, as he went, I opened the sash, and as I did so, the sound of a distant drum, the well-known muffled roll, floated on the air, and I remembered it was the day of the guillotine—that day in which my feverish spirit turned, as it were in relief, to the reality of blood. Remote as was the part of the city we lived in, to escape from the hideous imaginings of my overwrought brain, I could still mark the hastening steps of the foot-passengers, as they listened to the far-off summons, and see the tide was setting toward the fatal Place de Grève. It was a lowering, heavy morning, overcast with clouds, and on its loaded atmosphere sounds moved slowly and indistinctly; yet I could trace through all the din of the great city, the incessant roll of the drums, and the loud shouts that burst forth, from time to time, from some great multitude.
Forgetting every thing, save my intense passion for scenes of terror, I hastened down the stairs into the street, and at the top of my speed hurried to the place of execution. As I went along, the crowded streets and thronged avenues told of some event of more than common interest; and in the words which fell from those around me I could trace that some deep Royalist plot had just been discovered, and that the conspirators would all on that day be executed. Whether it was that the frequent sight of blood was beginning to pall upon the popular appetite, or that these wholesale massacres interested less than the sight of individual suffering, I know not; but certainly there was less of exultation, less of triumphant scorn in the tone of the speakers. They talked of the coming event, as of a common occurrence, which, from mere repetition, was gradually losing interest.
"I thought we had done with these Chouans," said a man in a blouse, with a paper cap on his head. "Pardie! they must have been more numerous than we ever suspected."
"That they were, citoyen," said a haggard-looking fellow, whose features showed the signs of recent strife; "they were the millions who gorged and fed upon us for centuries—who sipped the red grape of Bourdeaux, while you and I drank the water of the Seine."
"Well, their time is come now," cried a third.