When her father saw her dead, as he supposed, he rushed into the street, undaunted by the bursting of the shell, and picking up her body, retreated with it under shelter of the porte cochère.
But Claudine was not dead, nor even wounded. She had fainted with fright, and as her parents hung over her with tender words, she opened her blue eyes and smiled at them. A moment after, she remembered her dear doves. Before any one could stop her or forbid her she ran back into the street through bullets thick as hail, caught up her cage, and ran back with her recovered treasures. A pétroleuse who had seen her stopped as she was setting fire to some furniture, and cried out, with a mocking laugh,
"What was the use of running out to pick up those? They will be roast birds anyhow in the next half-hour."
On hearing these cruel words little Claudine began to comprehend for the first time the greatness of the danger. She drew back, darted a look of reproach at the vile woman who stood laughing at her trouble, and then, with the big tears rolling down her cheeks, "God will know how to keep them safe," she said, and opened the cage door. The doves flew out. They poised themselves a moment; then they rose into the air, and flew away to seek a purer sky above the clouds of smoke and sulphur. In spite of what the cruel woman said, the doves were saved.
A few moments later a drum was heard advancing up the street. The drummers marched at the head of a body of troops—the soldiers had come! "Vive l'armée!" cried the frightened householders.
In an instant pétroleuses, robbers, and insurgents scattered in all directions. It is a queer sight to see a French crowd run when the troops charge. Now, however, every soldier "thought on vengeance." The incendiaries dropped fast before the iron hail.
Meantime all hands were busy putting out the flames. The fire was at last got under. The furniture and wood-work of the first and second stories were badly burned and broken, but the rest of the house was saved.
Claudine and her family went back into their rooms, and let in the light of day, the father and mother blessing God for the timely arrival of the troops who had saved all Paris from fire and pillage. By degrees they grew more calm. But one sad heart was inconsolable. Claudine's share in the great catastrophe which had almost laid Paris "even with the ground" was the loss of her dear turtle-doves.
The next morning when she came out early on the balcony to look at the blackened ruins of the noble palace, and to mourn for her lost favorites, she uttered a cry of joy. Her doves sat on the railing of the balcony. They had flown back to their little mistress and their home.
"Mamma! mamma!" she cried, "God has sent me back my doves!" and her little heart recovered the happiness that in her inexperience she fancied had been lost forever.