'But blood will be shed,' said the king, thoughtfully.

'A little, no doubt, will be spilt,' answered the marshal; 'but what of that?'

'No blood shall flow by my orders,' said Louis, decidedly.

'You are wrong, De Broglie,' observed Foulon; 'the chances are that no lives will be lost; when your thousands appear, bah! who will there be in the streets? The rats will have fled into the sewers, and in good time we shall send the cats after them. Bah! talk of bloodshed! there is not the possibility of that. What is the civilian before the soldier? Nothing. The soldier is trained to cut this way, and to thrust that way, to bang off his gun so, and to charge with his lance so. He has acquired the art of killing a man in some thirty different ways. The civilian knows that; he looks up at the man of war and says to himself, "I am a mere tyro at this art. Whilst I am making up my mind how to begin, whisk, whisk, whack, whack, I am a dead man in four slices. I had better run." And, sire! he runs.'

'You think there will be no loss of life?' asked the king, hesitatingly.

'Think, sire,' repeated Foulon, with admirable confidence; 'I am absolutely sure of it. Consider, there are some hundred cannon and bombs ready at a moment's notice to knock the house of our Parisian rebel into fine dust about his ears. In that house are the beloved wife, and the darling children. A bomb falling through the ceiling may reduce the beloved wife to pulp, and mash the darling children. And worse still, the furniture will all be destroyed, and the linen torn to shreds, and the strong box containing ten years' savings exploded high into the air to fall down the chimney of neighbour B., his implacable enemy. But worse still is the prospect of himself being maimed in a finger, a toe, an eye, or a nose, or of being blown bodily into that most objectionable of places—eternity.'

'But,' hesitated the king, 'if the good people were to oppose the troops——'

'Then,' said De Broglie, 'we must pour a volley among them and send them flying.'

'I cannot make up my mind to it,' said Louis, despairingly. 'Am not I the father of my people? How, then, can I consent to their being mown down by your bullets?'

'Sire,' observed Foulon; 'allow me to remark, without the least intention of presumption, that it is very necessary for a father sometimes to whip his little boys; that, unless he wishes his home to become a bear-garden, he must use the rod pretty freely and pretty resolutely.'

'Sire,' said Berthier, 'I know these ruffians. Assume the upper hand, and they will cringe to you. We must punish them for their audacity. Sire! there is no knowing to what extremities they may proceed unless they are reined up at once.'

'That is quite possible. I dare say you are right, gentlemen,' said the king; 'but yet——' and he shook his head.

'Your majesty must remember that the dignity of the throne has to be maintained,' said the Count d'Artois.

'I will not maintain it by steeping my royal purple in the blood of my subjects,' answered Louis.

'Then, in Heaven's name, sire!' exclaimed the prince, losing all patience, 'throw open the jails and let no murderer, coiner, or robber be broken henceforth on the wheel. Our great ancestor, S. Louis, when trying a criminal, was much inclined by his natural tenderness of disposition to pardon the man; but, happening to open his Psalter at the words, "Feci judicium et justitiam," he resolved to let Justice take her course. Mercy that is not tempered with justice degenerates into weakness.'

'I know,' said Louis, simply—so simply as to raise a smile on several lips—'I know that I am weak.'

'Yes, sire! you are naturally prone to humanity and kindness. But at a moment like this, to yield to the tenderer feelings, when a decided line of action is imperatively demanded, is indeed weakness.'

'Enough,' said Louis; 'you are rather hard on me, Charles.'

'For my part,' muttered Berthier, 'I don't care how many of those Parisian blackguards are despatched. They richly deserve breaking on the wheel, and, to my thinking, a sabre-cut, a bayonet-thrust, or a bullet, is too merciful treatment.'

'You are not their father, M. Berthier,' said the king.

'Sire,' began De Breteuil, in his loud, inflexible voice, 'it is not a question of blood or no blood, but a question of the blood of the rabble or of the court and the ministry. If the measure we suggest, namely, the reduction of the rebellion by fire and steel, be rejected, then nothing remains for us but to tender our resignations, and to provide for our own safety, as best we can. That the brutal mob which has massacred your majesty's servants, Governor De Launay and Provost Flesselles, will hunt us down and butcher us, I have no manner of doubt; your majesty, by condoning those murders, assures to the rabble impunity if they assail us.'

'No, no, De Breteuil, you are wrong there.'

'Pardon me, sire,' he answered stiffly.

'What am I to do?' exclaimed the unfortunate king; 'I wish one of my brothers had been born before me.'

The door half opened, and the queen appeared. She beckoned to the king, and he followed her, closing the door behind him.

'Supposing we fail,' said Vaudreuil; 'I believe that our only chance of safety is to fly the country.'

'If his majesty reject our proposal,' said Artois, 'I fly to-morrow. I have no desire to have my head carried about on the end of a pike.'

'What shall you do?' asked Berthier of his father-in-law.

'I!' answered Foulon, taking snuff; 'I shall die.'

'I shall be off,' said Berthier, roughly; 'I'm not likely to run the risk of being murdered like Flesselles, without the satisfaction of knowing that my death will be avenged.'

'I suppose if we retire, Necker will return,' said De Broglie. 'Well, let his majesty try peace; it has failed once, and it will fail again.'

'Are you aware, marshal,' said Foulon, 'that Mirabeau has been crying out for your head?'

'Let him come and try to take it,' answered De Broglie; 'he will find me his match, old as I am.'

The king returned, his brow wet with perspiration, and his whole countenance wrung with distress.

'Gentlemen,' he spoke; 'I will do what I can. I will do anything you desire of me—except give orders for the attack upon Paris. Happily, no blood has flowed yet by my orders. I swear that none shall flow by my command. My reflections are made; I am ready to follow your advice and that of her majesty in every particular except that which is against my conscience. I have tried to stifle its voice, I have tried to see the force of your arguments, but ever the horror starts up before me of the possibility, nay, I fear the probability of carnage, and of bearing to my grave a brand worse than that of Cain; he was his brother's murderer, how much worse for a father to give up his children to slaughter! I cannot—indeed I cannot—consent.'

'Sire,' said De Breteuil, 'if your majesty has taken that resolution, we have but one course open to us.'

'The queen has been urging me,' said the king; 'and, if it were not against my conscience, I would yield to her.'

'Then your majesty must allow us to tender our resignation,' said De Breteuil.

'This is really very hard,' the king exclaimed. 'Have you only one scheme, and that a bloody one? Why not try conciliation?'

'Sire, we have judged what is the only course open to us to propose; if your majesty rejects that, it is our duty to withdraw.'

'I am very sorry,' muttered the king; 'but it cannot be helped, I fear. Oh that we had come to an end of these troubles!'

When the ministers retired they shook hands. The three days' ministry was at an end.

'I am off,' said De Broglie; 'I shall not jeopardise my neck in France any longer.'

'And I follow you,' said the Count d'Artois.

'I shall take refuge in Belgium,' said Berthier.

'And I—' observed Foulon; 'I shall prepare to die—take a pinch of snuff.'

CHAPTER XXXIV.

Madame Plomb returned to her husband's house, and was greeted by the hounds with exultant barks and gambols.

Her confinement had made her more crazy than ever, and Gabrielle had insisted on attending her to the door, and would have remained with her, in spite of her own fears, had not Madame Berthier refused to permit it.

'No, my dear,' said the poor lady; 'suppose the wolf be here in bed with a great frilled nightcap on; and when you go up to him, mistaking him for me, and say, "Oh, what great eyes you have!" he answers, "To see you the better, my dear;" and when you say, "Oh, what white teeth you have!" he rushes out upon you roaring, "To eat you the better, my dear—" That will never do; we must kill the wolf first, then you shall stay with me.'

'Madame,' said Gustave, 'your honoured husband is at Versailles.'

'At Versailles, is he? Pray, what is he doing there?'

'Madame,' answered the porter, 'he is one of his gracious majesty's new ministers.'

'Then his gracious majesty is going to eat up the people,' said the poor lady. 'Gustave, have the dogs been good?'

'They have been devils, madame,' exclaimed the porter, shaking his fist at them. 'They have leaped and barked all day long, and all night long as well. How is a person to sleep, if at his ear are chained fiends whose throats are never tired of emitting frightful howls? Ah, you ruffians!' he cried, again shaking his fist; 'I will scoop out your eyes, and pour boiling lead down your throats. I will heat the poker red hot and make you swallow it; I will take the skin off you with a file, that I will, sacr-rr-rr-rr-rr-rr-é.'

'Where is Adolphe?' asked madame.

'Alas! the good Adolphe is at the point of death.'

'What! here?'

'No, madame, he is no longer in M. Berthier's service.'

'In whose service is he, then?'

'In that of your most illustrious father.'

'Pray, when did he change his place?'

'About a month ago, madame.'

'And what is the matter with him now?'

'Alas! he is dying of a fever. I am desolated with grief; but what can one do? He is young; he is ten years younger than myself. I am tough, and strong, and wiry, and leathery. Ah! let a fever dare attack me. I will not yield to it. Madame, it is my belief that people die of diseases because they have not the pluck to fight against them. As I said to Adolphe, "Resist, man, resist; don't yield to the nasty insidious complaint; refuse to admit that you are ill; say to yourself, I never was better in my life. Shower contempt on the fever, spit upon it—and it will flee from you." But Adolphe is a poor fellow, he has no spirit; I could not stimulate his resolution, he yielded at once; and then, of course, the disorder obtained the mastery. Why, madame, suppose I were to succumb to these hounds; suppose I were to run away the moment they leap against me; suppose I were to scream out when they bark; they would fall on me and mangle me, and tear my throat and suck my blood. But I resist them, I threaten them, I cast ferocious glances at them, I swell with wrath against them; I arm myself with a redoubtable whip, and they slink before me into the kennels. See!'

Gustave dived into his lodge and rushed from it in another moment armed with a whip like a Russian knout.

Charging with blazing eyes, whirling his scourge above his head, and thundering forth exclamations of rage, and threats of horrible tortures in store for the hounds, he sent them flying to their holes with their tails between their legs.

'See, madame!' he exclaimed; 'that is the way to treat disease. Rush out upon it, throw yourself into a paroxysm of rage; curse, swear and blaspheme! It is better than ten thousand pills, powders, and draughts, provided by twenty millions of doctors.'

'When was M. Berthier here last?' asked madame.

'On Sunday, he has not returned since; and indeed,' he added, with some hesitation, 'I fear that it would hardly be safe for him to show himself in Paris at present. You will excuse me, madame, for hinting this.'

'Why not safe?' asked the poor woman; 'do others hate him as much as I do?'

'I fear that monsieur is not popular with the Parisians. They are flushed with victory, and incensed against my master. The mob has already assembled once or twice before the house, but I have assured them that he is at Versailles, and they have retired. But their attitude was threatening. I only wish I had had a few soldiers here, and we should have bayoneted them all the way up the street, and fed the dogs for weeks afterwards on their carcases. Ah, ha! Pigeon, Poulet! how you would have danced to taste man-meat, to lick up human blood! You would want some taking down afterwards to bring you to proper obedience! Sapristi! that you would!'

'Madame,' said Gabrielle, 'if Monsieur Berthier is unlikely to return here, let me remain with you for a few days.'

'Are you sure he will not venture here?' asked the lady of Gustave.

'See, my good mistress,' replied the man, drawing her into his lodge, and leading her to the window; 'will you do me the favour of looking out, and turning your head a little to the left?'

'Well,' answered she, when she had complied with his request; 'I see nothing remarkable.'

'No, madame; but you see a plaster-cast dealer at the corner?'

'Yes, I do; but what of that?'

'In half an hour his place will be taken by a seller of quack medicines, and that man will remain there till dusk. As soon as the bell goes at six, a man in a white blouse with his hands in his pockets will take the doctor's place, and will pace up and down till midnight, when he will disappear, and another man will occupy the same post. At day-break there will be a colporteur selling pamphlets.'

'And what does that mean?'

'It means, madame, that a strict watch is kept upon the house; and that, if monsieur were to return, it would be reported all over the town. I think I know the faces of some of these sentinels. The plaster-cast dealer lost his betrothed some few years ago. I need not tell you, madame, what had become of her, and the man found out and vowed vengeance on the Intendant, for which threat he was imprisoned. The quack doctor's little daughter was supposed by many to have been decoyed into this house. Anyhow she disappeared, and the father came here to make inquiries. I had orders to turn the dogs loose upon him. I do not know the other men. The colporteur's face I think I have seen at Bernay, but I cannot be sure.'

Madame Berthier laughed and danced round the yard.

'This is charming!' she cried; 'others are after the Beast. We will hunt him down, shall we not, Pigeon, dearest; shall we not, my treasure of a Poulet?' Then whirling up to Gabrielle, she caught her in her arms and said, 'Yes, stay here now with me; he dare not come to the house, or, if he does, I will deliver him over to the dogs and the men, and they will tear him in pieces.'

'Will you allow me, dear mistress, to run home to Madame Deschwanden's, and bring a few of my things?'

'Certainly,' answered the crazy lady; 'but be quick, for I have many things to show you and my seraph Gabriel. And I will keep his curiosity on the stretch till you return.'

Events of importance had followed the capture of the Bastille. The National Assembly sent a deputation, consisting of Bailly, Lafayette, the Archbishop of Paris, and the stout half-Irish Lally-Tolendal, to the Hôtel de Ville to announce the reconciliation effected with the king. Their presence caused the liveliest joy; and the electors proceeded to confer on Lafayette the command of the national guard, as they now called the newly-organized militia, and to choose Bailly to be Mayor of Paris in the place of the unfortunate Flesselles.

Whereupon a Te Deum was voted; and the multitude of French guards, soldiers of the line, and militia, together with a crowd of citizens, marched to Notre-Dame, where the ceremony was performed with due splendour.

The city had settled down into something like calm. The barricades were not removed, nor did the sentries cease to pace their distance. The feverish excitement had subsided, but anxiety still remained dominant. Would the king suffer the forty thousand men round Paris to remain inactive, and make no attempt to punish those who had broken open his fortress? In spite of the royal promise that the troops should be withdrawn, they remained at their posts.

The court, which had at first refused to believe in the fall of the Bastille, when all doubt of the fact disappeared, made light of the circumstance, for they trusted in a few hours to recapture the citadel. But when the king, obstinate for once in his life, refused all solicitations to employ force, then they felt that their hopes were at an end, and the Count d'Artois, the Condés, the Contis, the Polignacs, Vaudreuil, De Broglie, the Prince de Lambesc and others, absconded from France. Necker had left the Polignacs in power at Versailles; they were the first to announce to him at Basle the ruin and dispersion of the three days' ministry. De Breteuil hung on a few days longer, and then emigrated, to act as Louis XVIth's secret minister at foreign courts. Berthier was nowhere to be found, and with him had disappeared all the officers charged with the administration of provisions. Foulon was reported to be sick to death, poisoned by his own hand, in his stately mansion in the Rue du Temple.

Gabrielle was sitting one morning with Madame Plomb in the window, and the poor woman had recurred to her dream of a flight to the land of rocks and mountains.

'You know that it is a promise,' said she; 'you assured me that when I escaped from that hateful prison, I should go to the place where I was when a child.'

'But where was it?' asked Gabrielle.

'That I cannot say distinctly. I remember the mountains glittering with snow, and the roar of the falling torrents. I remember the blue lakes——'

'Dear madame,' said Gabrielle, interrupting her, 'your words remind me of what Nicholas and the corporal are continually repeating. You must mean Switzerland.'

'I am not certain,' answered Madame Berthier. 'There are so many mountains in the world. We have ranges of snowy peaks in the south and in the east, and there are the mountains of Auvergne. How can I say that it was not the Pyrenees or the mountains of Dauphiné that I remember?—Why are you blushing, child?' This was asked abruptly as Gabrielle drew her face from the window, and looked down at the needlework on which she was engaged.

Directly after a servant announced that there was some one at the door who wanted to speak to Mademoiselle André.

'Show him up here,' said madame. 'Do not stir from your seat, Gabrielle. I must see what it was that made you blush.'

The door immediately opened to admit Nicholas, who on entering stood shyly, hat in one hand, and a little statuette in the other.

He looked first at Gabrielle and then at Madame Plomb, with his large eyes full of bewilderment.

The leaden lady smiled.

'Is this the M. Nicholas of whom you so often speak?' she asked.

Gabrielle became crimson. Nicholas at the same moment radiated joy and nodded to the girl.

'This is the M. Nicholas Deschwanden who can tell you all about his land of mountains and lakes,' she said.

'That is capital,' exclaimed the lady. 'Sit down, young man, and tell me all about Switzerland.'

'Ah! good madame, how could I tell you all in one breath? Switzerland would take a lifetime to describe. And again, what description can adequately express its glories?'

'You have snowy mountains there,' said madame.

'Snowy mountains!' echoed Nicholas, his eyes lighting up. 'Oh! if you could but see them, standing half way up the sky, with their bases lost in blue shadows, and the evening glow—the Alpenglüth, we call it—upon their heads. Madame, since I have been in Paris, I have met some philosophers who deny all those things which I have been taught to believe. I have heard them pronounce Heaven and Paradise to be a fable; but no one looking at our Alps of an evening could doubt in Heaven and Paradise; they are a Revelation,—a witness of a better life and a better country. I am clumsy to express myself, but I feel it there,' and he laid his hand on his heart. 'Ah! good madame, it is a wonderful sight to behold the golden crimson light fade off the snow, and then there steals over the icy peaks a greyness like death, a ghastly chill that lasts for a few moments, as though they knew that they were not eternal.'

'And the lakes,' said Madame Berthier. 'I remember one as blue as heaven, with white water-lilies on it.'

'Was it a pond in France?' asked Nicholas, looking at Gabrielle.

'No. I have been among mountains and lakes.'

'Have you been in Switzerland?' asked Nicholas, eagerly.

'I do not know. I remember when I was a little child that I was in a beautiful land; but whether it was Switzerland or not I cannot tell.'

'We have such lakes,' said Nicholas; 'little heavens lying among the rough mountains, like still souls, such as that of Gabrielle, amongst the wild spirits surrounding them. There are water-lilies on our Sarnen See. But that is not equal to the lake of the Four Cantons, shaped like a cross, and the Catholic cantons cling around it lovingly.'

'Are you not all Catholics in Switzerland?' asked Madame Berthier.

'No,' answered the young man, sadly. 'Some of the cantons are Protestant. Oh, madame, is not that sad? and in those parts you cannot travel without tears. Love, faith, religion, are dead. Above the Lake of Thun, on the edge of a precipice, is a little cave in which lived a thousand years ago a blessed hermit.'

'Not Bruder Klaus, surely,' said Gabrielle.

'Bruder Klaus! no. It was the blessed Beatus. He was a British missionary, and he converted all that portion of Switzerland. I have visited his cave. From the mouth you can look over the beautiful lake to the snowy heads of the Jung-Frau, the Mönch, and the Eiger. Oh! the scene is so lovely. But no pilgrims visit the cave; the people around have forgotten their benefactor along with the faith he taught them. It is sad. I wept in that cave, and prayed for the re-conversion of those cantons which had fallen into heresy.'

His bright, honest face became clouded with sorrow.

Madame Berthier looked at it, smiled, and changed the subject.

'What is that little statuette in your hand?'

The lad coloured, and extended it to her.

'If you please, madame, I bought it for Mademoiselle André. It seemed to me so long since she left our house, and yet it is only three days, and I was sure that she wanted something, but I could not exactly tell what. I thought about it all day. I felt a voice within me say, "Gabrielle has need of something, you must take it to her." I felt impelled to come here, but I did not know for what purpose. At last it flashed across my mind that she must desire a little image of the Blessed Virgin for her devotions.'

'In other words,' said the lady, 'you felt miserable without Gabrielle, and hunted about for an excuse to come here?'

Nicholas stared at her. This was a new light in which to view his sensations. There might be some truth in it, he admitted to himself, and then his eyes fell.

'Oh, madame,' said he, 'you should see our beautiful lake of the Four Cantons. There is not a promontory that does not end in a little white chapel with a red roof, containing a sacred figure; there is not a rock jutting out of the water which has not its tiny shrine upon it. Oh! it is so pretty, so religious, so happy! I remember one just opposite the arm of the lake that points towards the south, it stands almost on the blue water, a white sunny speck, and when you row up to it you find it to be an arcaded niche, enshrining a statue of S. Nicolas von der Flue, the hermit, in his brown serge habit, staff in hand, with his sad, pale, earnest face looking out towards the hazy ridge, on the flank of which he dwelt so many years in prayer and fasting. And as you near the next prong of rock thrust out of the waves, you see a bower of hazels, in which snuggles another tiny chapel, open only to the water, overhung by a bush of flowering elder, with braids of crimson wild rose wavering against the white walls, and blue salvia and pink willow-herb clustering about the sides; whilst before the statue of the Blessed Virgin bearing her Child, that it contains, the sparkling ripples incessantly bow and whisper their litanies.'

'How beautiful!' exclaimed Madame Berthier; 'I must ask my father whether it was Switzerland that I remember.'

'Your father!' repeated Nicholas, looking blank; 'what can you mean, madame? do you not know——?'

'Know what?'

Nicholas looked at Gabrielle, and signed that he wished to say something to her in private.

'What do you mean?' again asked Madame Berthier.

'May I say a few words to Gabrielle first, outside the door?'

'By all means,' answered the poor lady, laughing.

The girl hesitated, but Nicholas winked and nodded to her, and contrived to express by cabalistic signs the importance of the communication he desired to make.

This did not reassure Gabrielle, who hung back more reluctantly than before; but her mistress insisted on her following Nicholas, and the young man, taking her arm, drew her into the passage.

'What is it, Nicholas?' she asked; 'I wish you would not be so mysterious. You quite frighten me.'

'Do not be angry, my dear friend,' he replied, 'it is about that poor unhappy lady I want to speak to you. I expected to find you alone here.'

'Then why did you come?' asked Gabrielle.

'I did not know that there was a prospect of finding you alone when I started,' pursued Nicholas; 'but I heard that M. Foulon was dead. Dreadful! it is reported that he poisoned himself, but that may be only a report and worthless. As I came here, I passed the funeral procession.'

'But, Nicholas, my mistress knows nothing of this.'

'How strange! She is his daughter. Has she not been told that her father is dead?'

'No. She did not know of his illness.'

'That is wonderful,' said the young man. 'But possibly the family were not aware that she had left the Bastille.'

'They must surely have known that.'

'Anyhow,' continued Nicholas, 'I saw the funeral on its way through the Rue S. Honoré to the church of S. Rocque. The cortège is splendid, and is passing through all the most important streets. Several carriages follow the hearse. No expense seems to have been spared.'

'Are you sure of this, Nicholas?'

'Perfectly,' answered the young man; 'I went myself to the mansion in the Rue du Temple, where the entrance-doorway was converted into a chapelle ardente, hung with black and adorned with the armorial bearings of the deceased.'

'What is to be done?' exclaimed Gabrielle.

'I think you ought to tell madame. I was dismayed when I entered and found her here. I cannot understand it. I will wait whilst you inform her. I will remain outside. Go in, Gabrielle.'

'I dare not.'

'Why not?' asked madame from within. 'I have heard all. You foolish children; you should speak lower. I am quick of hearing. My father dead! My father being buried! Well! I will attend his funeral, though not invited. Perhaps Berthier is there, and has kept the secret from me. Alas! I do not love my father, but I am sorry that he is dead. Come, my children, let us go to the church; I must see him once more.' She threw her bonnet and veil upon her head and prepared to sally forth.

'You see I am always in mourning,—always ready for a death. The cat cannot come. He is in too gay a costume. He must be put in trappings of woe when we return.'

On her way to S. Rocque, the poor woman became very excited, having convinced herself that Berthier had purposely kept her in ignorance of her father's death, and she turned first to Gabrielle and then to Nicholas to denounce him. By the time she had reached the railing before the flight of steps leading to the church, she had worked herself into a fit of madness.

The street was packed with spectators, who observed a sullen silence. Foulon was intensely and implacably hated, and he had been given over at the Palais Royal, by the popular orators, to the vengeance of the Parisians. The starving people, who during the last few days had suffered severely owing to an increasing deficiency of supplies, could not forget that this man had been one of the greatest farmers of the revenue, had made an enormous fortune out of the compact of famine, and had throughout his life been callous to the distress of the poor. His speech at Bernay, 'Wait till I am minister, then the people shall eat hay, my horses eat it,' had been repeated in the capital.

If Foulon had appeared in the streets alive, surrounded by a troop of soldiers, the exasperated mob would have burst through the iron ring and have strangled the life out of him. Now he was dead, they respected his body.

Madame Berthier, observing the crowd outside of the church, turned to those nearest her, and asked,—

'Have you come to see my father buried? I am his daughter, and they never told me of his death. But that was Berthier's doing.'

No one answered her except with scowls.

'Let me pass,' said she to the Suisse at the gate; 'do you know that my father is being buried, and I was not told that he was ill or dead? Was not that cruel? Not that I loved him much. How could I? He never loved me. But I want to see him. Let me pass, good man.'

She was admitted, and mounted some of the steps. At that moment the coffin was borne out of the door, over which black drapery strewn with little silver flames had been suspended.

Her position in comparative isolation before the gloomy trappings and the coffin and mutes on one side, and the mob of spectators on the other, excited Madame Berthier's brain, and springing to the platform on which the body of her father rested, she turned to the people and addressed them, throwing up her veil at the same moment, and displaying her hideous leaden face.

The vision produced a murmur of horror and disgust.

'Ah ha! good souls,' she screamed; 'pray for the unfortunate. Did you love the dead? Answer me.'

There was no response for some moments. She repeated her question, and then one man shouted: 'Does the corn love the wheel which turns on it and crushes it? No, we hate him.'

A groan of rage and detestation was then the general reply.

'Well,' said Madame Berthier, 'I do not care for him. I did not love him, and I do not love him now. He treated me very badly; he mocked me for my leaden looks, and bade me buy love, as I could not win it with my beauty. Will such jests make a child love her parents? Yet I do not hate him; I keep all my hate for my husband. Do you know Berthier de Sauvigny?'

The answer was a roar.

'He is my husband. Ah ha! you hate him, do you?'

'Hate him as we hate hell,' was bellowed.

'Do you hate him more than I do?'

'Ten times more.'

'No, that is impossible. You may kill him, you may bury him, and I will dance over his grave. He shut me into the Bastille, and kept me there a prisoner. Ah! poor father,' she cried, reverting to the coffin; 'ah! you shall be prayed for after death, for you have much to answer for that you committed in life.' She wheeled round to the mob, extended her arms, and cried: 'You are good, you Parisians. When my father and my husband shut me up in that terrible dungeon, you came and tore it down and liberated me. Foulon has wronged you. But he has gone to his account. Pray for the unfortunate!'

She raised her hands above her head, and began to dance with small steps on the pavement-stone on which she stood, without leaving it. All at once she burst into a peal of laughter and exclaimed: 'Do you know, good Parisians, what I did to Berthier?'

Some of the officials of the church and those belonging to the undertaker, advanced to remove her. But the crowd were in the humour to listen to her and to observe her, and they shouted to them to touch the lady at their peril.

'Do you know, good people, what I did?' she asked again. 'No, you cannot guess. He came to visit me in my cell, and I cast my yellow angel—my cat, into his face, and it tore him. I saw the streaks of blood. Ah ha! I hate him.' She knit her hands; her eyes glared like those of a tigress, she became rigid in every limb. 'Promise me, good people, if you find him, you will kill him. Hang him to the lantern, and make him blue like me. I have seen a dead man dangling from a beam—and his face was like mine. Let Berthier become M. Plomb. Promise me not to spare him—swear to me.'

The answer was thundered by several thousand voices—'We swear.'

'Will you curse him? See!' she ran to the church door and tore down a long strip of crape powdered with silver flames, and threw it over her like a cope—'See!' she cried, 'I will be your priestess, leading your curses and your prayers. Curse for me, Berthier de Sauvigny!' She lifted one arm. Her bonnet had fallen, and her ash-grey hair fell wildly about her flame-strewn vestment, which she held about her with her other hand. 'Curse him wherever he be. Cry out anathema!' She mounted the bier, and stood before the coffin. 'Curse him waking, and curse him sleeping.'

The people, falling in with her mad humour, or carried away by the wildness of the scene and her actions, responded,—

'Anathema!'

'Curse him eating, and curse him drinking.'

'Anathema!'

'Curse him in his moments of laughter and mirth, and in his times of sorrow and fears.'

'Anathema!'

'Curse him when he is flying from his enemies. Shut the way about him with curses, that he cannot escape.'

'Anathema!'

'Blind his eyes, that he may not see clearly whither to flee.'

'Anathema!'

'Stop his ears to good advice, and open them only to that which is evil, to the counsel of Ahitophel.'

'Anathema!'

'Curse his hands, that they may fail him in the last struggle for life.'

And the people roared 'Anathema!'

'Curse his feet, that they may fail him when he turns to fly.'

'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.

A ring was formed around Madame Berthier and the coffin, and it was observed that several of the mourners immediately decamped with precipitation.

On the coffin was a silver plate, inscribed with the name of Foulon, and a list of the offices he had held, that of minister during the eventful three days, not being omitted.

'Open the coffin for me, good people. You shall see my father. He is not very terrible now.'

'A turnscrew,' was called from man to man; and presently one was produced, and the coffin-lid was slowly and laboriously removed.

'Now,' said Madame Berthier, taking hold of the napkin spread over the face of the deceased, 'I bid you all look with me on the countenance of my poor father. He was a bad man, I allow, and a hard man upon the poor, but then, he is dead now, and has gone to his account. You have prayed God to have mercy on his soul; I am sure when you see his dead face that you will be prepared to bury your resentment in his grave. Behold!' she drew the napkin aside, looked on the face of the corpse, started back, uttering a cry of dismay:—

'This is not my father! This is poor Adolphe!'

The crowd pressed forward and stared long at the dead man, satisfying themselves of the deception. Not a word was spoken, not a murmur arose. All pushed up to the corpse, gazed on it, and then looked into the eyes of those around them.

'My father is still alive!' exclaimed madame. 'Praised be God.'

'Madame,' said a man into her ear, 'before the week is out he will be dead.'

CHAPTER XXXV.

Berthier had fled in the direction of Belgium, on foot; travelling by night, hiding in barns or in clumps of trees by day. He had passed two nights without sleeping. At Senlis he was recognised by a baker from whom he bought a loaf; but, by the time the news had become public, he had disappeared. A courier was immediately despatched to Paris with the announcement that Berthier was in the neighbourhood; and the magistrates asked instructions as to their conduct, should he be brought before them. The following evening after dusk, the fugitive entered a small tavern by the road-side, near Compiègne, and asked for supper. He was much altered since he had left Paris. Sleepless nights and anxious days had deprived his complexion of colour, and had reduced it to a pasty hue. His large cheeks hung limp, his red lips had turned purple. His hair, undressed and disordered, held particles of hay and straw entangled in it. A large, broad-brimmed hat covered his brow, and was drawn over his eyes, which troubled him more than heretofore. He held his stained handkerchief between his fingers, he had washed it in a stream by the road-side; it was not thoroughly dry.

The tavern was lighted by a resin candle in a holdfast attached to the jamb of the fireplace, it spluttered and guttered upon the hearth and yielded an uncertain light.

The proprietor of this house of refreshment sat upon a bench outside his door, conversing with a couple of peasants, and smoking a pipe; whilst the wife, a little shrivelled-up old woman, with a handkerchief tied round her head and knotted behind, bustled about the kitchen preparing soup and stew with the assistance of a flat-faced, radiant girl, who tumbled about as though walking on skates, and never stood upright.

M. Berthier requested to have his food served separately at the end of the long table. He did not remove his hat, but sat with his hand to his brow and his elbow on the table.

Presently the flat-faced girl rolled and staggered in with a bowl of potage for each of the guests,—the usual very thin broth in which float scraps of untoasted bread, and the surface dotted with globules of oil, with which foot travellers in France must be familiar. Then the little dried-up woman ran to the door and called imperiously to the three men outside, 'Come on, come on, the potage is served;' whereupon they clattered in, in their sabots, and fell like sacks into their places.

'There you are, sir,' said the wizen hostess, thrusting a bowl of potage before the ex-intendant; 'you will find it superb.'

'The day has been hot and the sun scorching; I have walked far,' said Berthier, wearily.

'From what place does monsieur come?'

'Never mind,' answered Berthier angrily, 'I am too hungry to answer questions; if you answer one that a woman makes, you must answer a thousand.'

The old woman retired muttering.

The peasants, between their spoonfuls of soup, continued the conversation in which they had been engaged outside the door.

'He has not been captured yet?' asked one of the men.

'No, Pierre; but he was seen at Senlis. Do you know that baker, named Michaud, in the square before Notre Dame, at the corner? Well, he went in there to buy a brioche, and the good man knew him; he had seen him when he superintended the buying of the corn in Artois. He did not say much then; he just mentioned it to some of his acquaintances, and they spread the news through the city. But the magistrates do nothing.'

'Why should they, Jean?' asked the other; 'hawks do not prey on hawks, and you will not find magistrates over-zealous in bringing other magistrates to book.'

'And which direction do you think he has taken now?'

'I expect he is on his way to Clermont, and so by Amiens to Lille.'

'Who will arrest him, Pierre?'

'Who but the people?'

'And is he so very bad?'

'He is one of the famine-mongers,' answered Pierre; 'he has made a vast fortune out of speculations in corn. He is a man who has fattened on our misery. He was one who sought to drive the king to massacre his people. He supplied the troops with an incredible number of cartridges, with which he designed that the canaille of Paris should be swept away.'

'And if they catch him, Pierre, what will they do with him?'

The other shrugged his shoulders.

'For my part,' said the innkeeper, 'I don't like popular judgments. Let us have criminals tried by the proper courts.'

'But how so, when the judges are the culprits?'

'I don't like it,' repeated the host.

'Suppose the innkeepers all sold bad wine, and the wine-drinkers rose in a body and produced a notorious adulterator of grape-juice, would they be satisfied with the judgment upon him pronounced by a committee of peculating taverners, eh?'

'You won't make me like it,' said the host, slapping the table.

'He might get to Lille this way, might he not?' asked Jean.

'Ay, he might. And he could hide about in the forest, waiting his opportunity to escape with facility.'

'I doubt if he could be caught if he hid away in the forest.'

'No, they could not catch him, unless they had dogs.'

'What, hunt him with dogs, like a deer!'

'Ay, with bloodhounds.'

Berthier rose from his seat, and laid a piece of silver on the table.

'Where are you going?' asked the little hostess.

'I cannot eat any more,' answered he; 'the soup is thin, the cooking is execrable. Here, take this, I must be off.'

He drew the hat farther over his eyes, and made towards the door. The old woman caught the resin flambeau from its holdfast, and running before him, threw the light into his face.

'Do you say my potage is thin,—is execrable? You did not see the beaux yeux (the oily globules), you did not taste them—no! execrable!'

Berthier brushed past her and went out, muttering a curse.

'Ah!' shrieked the indignant lady after him, 'you despise my potage, you do not admire the beautiful eyes of fat floating on its superb surface. I don't admire your eyes, neither, I tell you. I don't admire eyes set in red-hot sockets. Eyes, indeed! you're a nice choice personage to pour contempt on the magnificent eyes in my potage.' Then, turning to the peasants, she appealed to them. 'I will ask you, gentlemen, to observe your soup. Are there eyes on it; in abundance, eh? or are they scarce, eh? Does the potage taste execrable? does it look execrable? does it smell execrable?'

'Who is that fellow?' asked Pierre.

'Who is he?' repeated the hostess; 'Mon Dieu, how do I know? Do you think I care? do you think I shall concern myself for one instant about a ragamuffin who is so ill bred as to despise my potage; who sees no eyes in my soup; who tastes none; who nevertheless—' she looked into Berthier's bowl; 'who nevertheless has eaten it all up, and not left a sippet of bread behind for the cat?'

'What did you say about his eyes, madame?' asked Pierre.

'What did I say?' repeated the old woman; 'I said that he was not the man to criticise my eyes.'

'But what of his own?'

'What of his own!' echoed the hostess; 'if they were half as superb as those in my potage, he might be thankful, and offer votive wax ones at Notre Dame de Bon-secours. Ah! I have known sore eyes healed there. There was little Babelou, Pernette's daughter. The lids were closed about them like those of a young puppy, and so inflamed. It pierced the heart to see them, and they vowed to Notre Dame and took the child there, and she came back healed.'

'But what about the stranger's eyes? Were they sore?'

'Were they sore?' retorted the old woman. 'Do you call that sore when the eyeball is set in a ring of red? Is one with eyes such as that a fit person to talk of thin soup, of deficient eyes in the potage, of——'

Pierre sprang up with a howl like that wherewith the dog greets the moon.

'It is Berthier,' he yelled; 'follow me, Jean. Leave your clogs here;' and he kicked his wooden shoes under the table.

'Give us a glass to stimulate us for the run, host! Now, Jean, come along. Sapristi! if we catch him, it will be better than a thousand suppers.'

In the meantime, the unfortunate Berthier was running along the road. He was weary, and faint from want of food, and could not run fast, or for long.

The night had set in; along the west lay a belt of light, white and ghastly, where the sun had gone down; and over head a few stars looked out. To his right lay a mass of blackness, which he supposed to be the forest of Compiègne. He passed a solitary church surrounded by the dead, and a light burning in the grave-yard to scare away witches and fiends. He seated himself on the steps before the cross at the gate of the cemetery, and felt for his handkerchief to wipe the perspiration from his brow. But it was not in his pocket. He remembered to have placed it on his knee when he sat at supper. Doubtless he had dropped it under the table in the tavern.

The tramp of running feet approached, and in fear he sprang up and recommenced his flight.

Pierre and Jean shouted, but he did not answer. His face swam with perspiration, and he smeared it over his cheeks with his cuff, as he tried to wipe them. He strained every nerve to run, setting his teeth; the wind whistled through them as he drew his breath. He stood still, unable to continue his flight, without a break for recovering his wind. His breast laboured. His brain was on fire, and his heart beat violently. The temples throbbed as though a hammer were striking on them. The measured tread of the runners drew nearer; and for a minute Berthier could not run. But just as they hove in sight through the darkness, he bounded forward, and attempted to leap a gate at the road-side opening into a field, but which was fastened. He fell, unable to clear it, and in falling sprained his foot. In another moment the peasants would be upon him. His only resource was to roll into the ditch, half full of water, and overhung with briars at the side.

'He has made for the wood!' shouted Jean.

'Sacré! we must be quick, or we shall miss him!'

Berthier heard both the men climb the gate.

'I know he has gone this way,' said Jean; 'I heard the rattle of the bar as he touched it.'

'Over with you,' shouted Pierre; and both jumped into the field and ran across it.

Berthier heard their calls becoming more distant. He remained immersed in mire, shivering with fear, till they returned, cursing their ill luck.

'Once in the woods he may elude a thousand,' said Pierre, as he climbed the gate on his way back.

'What is to be done now?'

'We must on to Compiègne, and announce to the people there that he is in the forest.'

'Sapristi! I wish I had my wooden shoes.'

'I wish we had not missed him; and all through old mother Picou's gossiping magpie tongue.'

Berthier listened as the two men retired, and then he slowly raised himself from the ditch into which he had rolled. Fagged, with his ankle strained, he felt unequal to a long flight; his only chance lay in being able to escape the vigilance of an aroused peasantry in some nook of the forest.

He therefore pursued the road till it entered the gloom of the trees, when he made for the first gap in the hedge, and dived into the pitch blackness beneath the foliage.

He groped his way along, resting occasionally, and then starting up and pushing forward in his fear. Sometimes the rush of birds rising from their perches among the boughs startled him, and sent the blood to his heart. A wild cat hissed and a night-hawk screamed. Some animal stole past him through the underwood; what it was, Berthier could not guess, but the rustle in the leaves produced by its movements filled him with fear.

He came out upon a path, and was frightened to see a phosphorescent line drawn along it. Wood-cutters had been removing old decayed timber during the day, and the traces were luminous at night.

Hearing a dog begin to bark furiously, he conjectured that he was approaching a farm, so he turned into the woods again. Taking the pole-star as his guide,—he could distinguish it occasionally through the branches overhead, he struck due east, wading through fern. Sometimes he caught his feet in the brambles, sometimes he stumbled over tree-roots or fallen boughs, and fell upon his face.

The ground rose and he mounted a hill, then descended into a valley, mounted another rise and went down into a hollow, where a sheet of water reflected the sky and the trees. In the surface he saw the lightening of the dawn reflected. He bathed his face and hands, and then crept under an oak with his eyes towards the east, waiting for morning to break and the sun to return.

At last the day awoke, and with it the birds, the insects, and the church bell.

The wretched man fell asleep, and did not open his eyes again till past nine. He was refreshed, but stiff and hungry. The place where he was seemed to him too exposed, and he crawled away into the dell under a mat of bracken.

Towards noon his hunger became intolerable, and he deserted his place of concealment, and crept cautiously through the wood, looking for—he knew not what. Presently he came upon a broad path, and in it he saw a priest pacing slowly along reading his breviary.

Berthier hesitated whether to show himself, but a cracking branch against which he leaned attracted the curé's attention, and he directed his eyes towards the point where the fugitive stood. Seeing that he was discovered, the intendant came forward, and presented himself before the priest.

'Who are you?' asked the curé with some surprise.

'Never mind who I am,' answered the unfortunate man; 'I am pursued by bloodthirsty ruffians, my life is sought, and I am obliged to hide. That is enough for you to know. Take my purse, and, for the love of Heaven, bring me some food.'

The priest looked at him with interest and compassion.

'I will assist you,' he said; 'keep your money, you may want it. Who you are I can guess. I will bring you a loaf and leave it behind that sycamore, but do not show yourself again. You must remain concealed in the forest for a few days, and each day you shall find food at the foot of the tree I indicated. When it is safe for you to fly, I will give you notice. Hist!'

Berthier heard shouts; he turned and escaped into his former hiding-place.

The priest resumed his recitation of Sext with the utmost composure, and continued his walk.

Shortly after a troop of peasants, armed with scythes and pitchforks, rushed down the road, chattering, and fired with excitement.

They touched their caps to the curé, who removed his shovel hat and bowed low, without, however, withdrawing his eyes from the book.

'Eh, well! Michel,' said one of the peasants; 'what will you do tearing on in that style? Let me ask Monsieur le Curé if he has seen the fellow.'

The priest continued murmuring his psalms:—

'Fac cum servo tuo secundum misericordiam tuam: et justificationes tuas doce me. Eh! what now, Vacherot?'

'Has Monsieur le Curé seen a man about here?'

'What sort of a man?'

'The fellow is M. Berthier, the ex-intendant of Paris, and he is flying the country.'

'What do you want with him? let him fly.'

'It will not do to suffer him to escape, Monsieur le Curé. Have you seen him?'

'All I can answer you is, that he has not gone this way;' and the curé's forefinger pointed up his sleeve.

'We will hunt elsewhere,' said the peasant. 'Come along, Michel.' And in another moment the rustics were out of sight.

For two days the search was maintained; but Berthier succeeded in eluding his pursuers. He found bread and meat and wine every morning at the place indicated. On the third morning a scrap of paper was attached to the loaf, with the inscription traced on it in pencil, 'Fly east, the pursuit has abated.'

In fact, the country people, tired of wasting their time without a prospect of remuneration, and beginning to disbelieve the report given by Pierre and Jean, returned to their agricultural labours. But Nemesis was at hand.

Directly it was known in Paris that Berthier had been seen at Senlis, his wife started in her light carriage, taking with her the two hounds, Pigeon and Poulet, and accompanied by one of the electors, M. de la Rivière.

At Senlis it was reported that Berthier had been seen in the neighbourhood of Compiègne. At the tavern where he supped, Pierre and Jean and the hostess described his person to the elector.

'It is he,' cried madame; 'we are on the track. You saw his eyes, then, good woman?'

'I saw them plain enough,' she answered; 'I don't want to see them again.'

'And do you know what I want to do?' asked the crazy lady; 'I want to shut them for ever.'

'Which direction did he take?' asked M. de la Rivière.

'He fled into the forest.'

'How long ago?'

'Three nights.'

'Has the forest been searched?'

'We have done our best; but how can fifty thousand acres be thoroughly searched? We want dogs.'

'Here they are,' exclaimed madame, joyously. 'Now, Poulet, and you, Pigeon, you shall have a glorious chase after the wild beast. You shall go straight as arrows after him; you shall track him in all his wanderings, and you shall fall on him and pin him to the ground. Ah! I wish I had brought something of the Beast's here for the hounds to sniff at, to let them know what they are to chase.'

'Madame,' said the little hostess, 'the fellow dropped his handkerchief under my table, when he called my cooking execrable.'

'Bring it here,' ordered the mad woman.

'Yes, that is his!' she cried, when the discoloured kerchief was shown her. 'It is his blood,—faugh! I know its look, I know its colour, I know its scent. Give it to me.'

'Hold, madame,' interposed Pierre; 'let us conduct the dogs to the entrance of the forest.'

We must go back to Berthier, who seated himself in his thicket when he had read the note, and consumed the food provided for him by the priest. The wretched man felt, for the first time since he left Versailles, relief from the agony of suspense. In a few days, if he could only reach the frontier, he would be safe; and every day that took him farther from the capital diminished the probability of his capture.

'Here, then,' said Berthier, tossing off the last drop of the wine, 'here's to my safe escape into Belgium. That priest has been a good fellow; I have a mind to leave some gold in his bottle, as a return for his kindness.' He looked into his well-furnished purse. 'No,' he said; 'I shall want all myself, if I have to remain long in a foreign land. The curé must do without.' Then rising, he threw the poor priest's bottle away, stretched himself, and began stealthily to advance eastward.

He had not taken a step forward, before he heard the baying of some hounds. The note was peculiar, and was familiar to Berthier. His pale face became white as clay.

'My God!' he groaned; 'can it be!'

He began to run, tearing the branches apart, and crashing through the fern.

The baying approached. He uttered a cry of terror, and throwing aside his cloak ran at his utmost speed. Breaking into a forest path, he raced along that. His hat came off, but he disregarded it in the delirium of terror. The scent of burning wood entered his nostrils without being observed; he sped past a charcoal-burner's heap without noticing it. The man attending the fire sprang up and shouted. Berthier turned his head, and saw two hounds leap out of the wood and bound along the path with even gallop, easily, gracefully, at arrowy speed.

His foot catching in a rut, he stumbled; picked himself up again and ran on. Everything swam before his eyes. A roaring as of the sea sounded in his ears.

The hounds drew nearer, nearer, nearer, lessening the distance between them at every bound.

Then Berthier saw it was in vain for him to fly. He caught at the branch of a tree, and endeavoured to lift himself upon it and scramble beyond their reach. The bough bent with his weight. He threw up his feet, to clasp the branch, clinging with his arms, but could not catch the wood. The hounds were beneath him, leaping at him. His arms had not the strength to lift him. The teeth of Poulet entered his calf. He fell to his feet, and ran on, but Pigeon was before him bounding at his throat. He broke off a portion of a bush, a hazel-branch covered with leaves, and thrashed at the dogs with it, but could not hurt them. He backed to an oak and defended himself with his branch and feet, shrieking for fear.

Then Poulet flew at his throat, and he fell; Pigeon danced over and round him, yelping.

The charcoal-burner, begrimed with coal-dust, came up, brandishing a cudgel, and beat off the hounds, standing astride over the prostrate man.

'A thousand livres if you save me!' groaned Berthier.

'A thousand devils!' roared the peasant. 'I will but save you from being torn to bits by these brutes, that I may deliver you over to justice.'

The hounds were furious; they rushed and snapped at Berthier's limbs, at his hands, his feet, at his head, just as they had been wont to rush and snap at their food whilst he beat them off with his whip.

The pain of their bites, the horror of his position, the fear of what was in store for him overcame him, and he lost consciousness.

CHAPTER XXXVI.

In the afternoon of July 23, Berthier was brought into Paris through the Porte S. Martin, attended by a mob, many of whom had followed for twenty leagues.

He was in his own private carriage, with M. de la Rivière at his side. Madame, in one of her fancies, had chosen to sit outside.

The mob danced before him and raged behind him. A hideous procession was formed. A brass band led the way, followed by national guards, and soldiers from all corps which they had deserted, marching arm-in-arm, chanting with full lungs:—

'Ah! ça ira, ça ira, ça ira!
Les aristocrats à la lanterne!
Ah! ça ira, ça ira, ça ira!
Les aristocrats on les pendra
La liberté triomphera
Malgré les tyrans, tout réussira.'

The top of the carriage had been broken in by the people, that they might see the hated Berthier better. He sat, white, quivering, in a dream; seeing faces peering at him from above as men climbed behind the cabriolet and looked down on him, from each side, as they thrust their heads in at the windows to stare at him. He heard them hoot and curse, but he scarcely heeded them. Sometimes blows were aimed at him, but Étienne de la Rivière protected him. A fiddler mad with the general excitement climbed up behind the vehicle and beat at Berthier with his violin. The elector broke the instrument on his arm, and then the musician struck with the handle. M. de la Rivière stood up and thrust the fiddler from his perch, and he fell back and disappeared among the crowd that followed.