at that time overspread all France, wherefore the old lady
had thus far encountered no one. Her eyesight, long since
grown dim, moreover, did not enable her to distinguish by
the feeble light of the street-lamps the few scattered pedes-
trians who loomed like spectres through the dense fog that
filled the wide faubourg. Alone and unprotected, she
pressed on courageously through that solitude, as if her
(262)
AN EPISODE UNDER THE TERROR 263
age had been a talisman to defend her against all evil.
When she had passed the Rue des Morts, it seemed to her
that she heard the heavy tramp of a man plodding through
the snow behind her. The notion possessed her that this
was not the first time that she had heard those sounds. She
was alarmed to think that she was followed, and made an
effort to reach a shop somewhat more brilliantly illuminated
than its neighbors, hoping by the friendly light to verify the
suspicions that beset her. When she found herself within
the circle of light diffused by the shop window she suddenly
turned her head and dimly beheld, shrouded in the fog, the
outlines of a human form. That indistinctly seen vision
sufficed her. She stood for a moment tottering under the
weight of terror that oppressed her, for she no longer
doubted that she had been dogged by the stranger from
the moment when she left her house, and the desire of
escaping from a spy lent her increase of strength. Incapa-
ble of reasoning, she redoubled her speed, as if she could
outstrip a man who could not but be more nimble than she.
After a few minutes of swift running she reached the shop
of a pastry-cook, entered, and dropped rather than seated
herself upon a chair that stood before the counter. As the
latch creaked under her hand a young woman seated at her
embroidery frame raised her eyes, recognized through the
glass of the door the violet-coiored silk mantle of antiquated
fashion that enwrapped the old lady's form, and, rising hur-
riedly, went and opened a drawer as if to take from it some
object that she was to give the visitor. The young woman's
face and manner betrayed an intention to make her inter-
view with the stranger, the sight of whom evidently afforded
her no pleasure, as brief as possible, and she gave utterance
to an ejaculation of impatience on finding the drawer empty.
Then, without condescending to look at the lady, she dashed
out from behind the counter, went to the door of the back
shop and summoned her husband, who appeared immedi-
ately.
"What have you done with the — ?" she asked him with
264 BALZAC'S WORKS
an air of mystery, glancing .it the old lady, but not otherwise
completing her sentence.
Although notliing of the stranger was visible to the
pastry-cook save the huge black silk bonnet plentifully
besprinkled with bows of violet-colored ribbon which pro-
tected her head, he disappeared after giving his wife a look
which seemed to say, "Did you suppose I was going to leave
that in your drawer?" Surprised to see the old lady so
silent and motionless, the shopwomau approached her and,
on a closer observation, was moved by an impulse of com-
passion, and also, perhaps, of curiosity. Although her
complexion was naturally white, of the livid whiteness of
those addicted to secret austerities, it was manifest that the
pallor which now overspread her face was abnormal and due
to some recent and extraordinary emotion. Her headgear
was so arranged as to conceal her hair, the snowy whiteness
of which could have been due to age alone, for the neatness
of the collar of her gown told that she did not use powder.
The total absence of all ornament gave to her countenance
a sort of religious severity-. Her features were proud and
grave. In bygcne times the manners and customs of people
of quality were so unlike those of persons belonging to the
other classes, that it was an easy matter to distinguish a man
or woman of noble birth. The young woman was convinced
that the stranger was a ci-devant and had belonged to the
court.
"Madame — ?" said she, hesitatingly and with respect,
unmindful of the fact that the law had suppressed all titles.
The old lady made no reply. She kept her eyes fixed on
the window of the shop, as if fascinated by some frightful
object that she saw there.
"What ails you, citoyenne?" inquired the master of the
shop, who reappeared at that juncture.
The citizen pastry-cook aroused the lady from her ab-
straction by tendering her a little pasteboard box covered
with blue paper.
"Nothing, my friends, nothing, she gently replied.
AN EPISODE UNDER THE TERROR 266
She raised her eyes to the pastry-cook's face as though
to thank him, but, observing on his head the bonnet rouge,
a shriek burst from her lips:
'*Ah! you have betrayed me!"
The young woman and her husband replied by a gesture
of horror which brought a blush to the stranger's face, per-
haps of pleasure, perhaps of shame for having suspected
them.
"Excuse me," she said in a voice of childlike sweetness.
Then she took a louis d'or from her pocket and gave it
to the pastry-cook.
"That is the sum we agreed upon," she added.
There is a poverty that the poor are apt at divining.
The pastry-cook and his wife looked each other in the face,
then bent an inquiring gaze on the aged woman, exchanging
as they did so a thought that was common to them both.
That louis d'or was the last! The lady's hand shook as she
tendered the coin, which she contemplated sorrowfully,
though not with the eye of avarice; she seemed to realize
the full extent of the sacrifice that she was making. Hunger
and destitution were written on that face in characters as
legible as those described by fear or by habits of asceticism.
There were vestiges of vanished splendor in her garments,
in the gown of heavy silk that had long since lost its sheen,
in the scrupulously neat mantle of the fashion of a genera-
tion now dead and gone, in the laces that had been so
minutely and laboriously darned and redarned — the shreds
and patches of past opulence! The tradespeople, divided
between their sentiments of compassion and interest, began
by quieting their conscience with words.
"But, citoyenne, thou appearest to be exhausted — "
"Perhaps Madame would feel better if she took some-
thing?" suggested the wife, taking the words out of her
husband's mouth.
"We have some nice hot bouillon," added the pastry-
cook.
"The weather is so abominable, Madame has likely taken
(L)— Vol. 17
266 BALZAC'S WORKS
cold while coming here. But you are welcome to remain
until you are rested, and warm yourself by our fire."
Encouraged by the kindly accent that pervaded the
words of the charitable shopkeepers, the lady confessed
that she had been followed by a strange man, and feared
to return alone.
"Is it no more than that?" rejoined the man in the
bonnet rouge. "Wait a minute, citoyenne."
He turned the louis over to his wife; then, actuated by
that quality of gratitude which is wont to penetrate the intel-
ligence of a tradesman when he has received a conscience-
less price for his trumpery wares, he went and donned his
National Guard uniform, put on his hat, girded on his
sword, and reappeared fully armed and equipped; but his
wife had had time to reflect. As is the way with many, re-
flection closed the opened hand of benvolence. Alarmed
and fearing that her husband was brewing trouble for him-
self, she plucked him by the skirt of his coat in an effort
to detain him; but the worthy man, obeying his charitable
impulse, blurted out an oflEer to the old lady to escort her
home.
"The man whom the citoyenne fears seems to be still
prowling about the door," the young woman said.
"I am afraid of him," the old lady naively declared.
"Suppose he is a spy — suppose it's a conspiracy! Don't
go — take back the box — "
These words, breathed in the pastry-cook's ear by his
better half, cooled the impromptu courage that had so lately
possessed him.
"Eh! I'll just go and say two words in the fellow's ear,
and rid you of him in short order!" exclaimed the pastry-
cook, opening the door and stepping hurriedly outside.
The old lady, half-dazed and passive as a child, resumed
her seat. The two women . had not long to wait for the
doughty guardsman's return. His face, whose naturally
ruddy complexion had been dyed a still deeper red by the
fires of his range, had suddenly become ghastly white; so
AN EPISODE UNDER THE TERROR 267
great was his terror that his legs shook under him, and he
had the wild-eyed look of a drunken man.
"You would send us to the guillotine, would you, miser-
able aristocrat?" he screamed in his fury. "Come now, be
off with you, and never show your face here again! You
need not think you are going to involve me in your con-
spiracies. ' '
At the same time the pastry-cook attempted to take from
the old lady the little box which she had thrust into one of
her pockets. She had scarcely more than felt the touch of
the man's audacious hands upon her garments, however,
than the stranger, preferring, rather than lose that which
she had Just bought and paid for, to brave the perils of the
way with no protection save God's, recovered the agility of
youth. She darted to the door, threw it wide open, and
vanished from the sight of the husband and wife whom she
left trembling and confounded. As soon as she found her-
self once more upon the sidewalk the pld lady pushed ahead
with the best speed she could muster, but it was not long
before her strengtli began to leave her; for she could hear
the snow creaking under the heavy tread of the relentless
spy close at her heels. She was compelled to stop, he
stopped also. Whether as a result of the great fear that she
was laboring under or from lack of intelligence, she dared
not look at or speak to him. She resumed her way, walking
less rapidly ; the man accommodated his steps to hers in a
manner that enabled him to keep her within sight. One
would have said he was the aged woman's shadow.
The bells were announcing the hour of nine as the silent
pair again passed St. Laurent's Church. It is true of all
natures, even the weakest, that violent agitation is suc-
ceeded by a period of calm; for if sentiment is boundless,
our organs are finite. The stranger, therefore, receiving no
molestation from him whom she had taken to be her perse-
cutor, chose to see in him a secret friend whose object was
her protection; she called to mind all the circumstances that
had attended the unknown man's appearances, as if seeking
268 BALZAC'S WORKS
to discover argumeats confirmatory of that comfortable
opinion, and arrived at the conclusion that his intentions
were rather good than evil. Forgetting the terror that the
man had inspired in the pastry-cook, she advanced with a
firmer step and struck into the upper regions of the Fau-
bourg Saint-Martin, and after a half-hour's walk came to a
house situated at the intersection of the main street of the
faubourg and the narrower one which leads to the Barri^re
de Pantin. This locality is, even at the present day, one of
the quietest and loneliest spots in all Paris. The north
wind, swooping down from the Buttes Chaumont and de
Belleville, blew through the houses — or hovels, rather —
that were sparsely scattered about the almost uninhabited
valley where the inclosing walls were built of mud and
bones. The desolate spot seemed the natural dwelling-
place of destitution and despair. The man who had shown
such keenness in his pursuit of the poor creature who was
sufficiently bold to traverse by night those silent streets ap-
peared struck by the spectacle that presented itself to his
view. He stood lost in thought, in an attitude of hesitation,
his form dimly visible by the flickering light of the street-
lamp that did its poor best to pierce the fog. Fear lent eyes
to the old woman, who thought she could distinguish some-
thing sinister in the strange man's features; she felt her
former terrors creeping over her again, and took advantage
of the man's seeming uncertainty to glide amid the shadows
up to the door of the solitary house, where she touched a
button and vanished as if by magic. The unknown man,
motionless as a statue, stood contemplating the house, which
may be said to have afforded a type of the wretched habita-
tions of the faubourg. The dilapidated structure, built of
stone blocks covered with a coat of yellow plaster, was so
seamed and cracked that one expected to see it fall in ruins
with every breath of wind. The roof, of brown tiles over-
grown with moss, had settled in spots in such a manner as
to make it appear inevitable that it must give way under
the superincumbent weight of snow. Each floor had three
AN EPISODE UNDER THE TERROR 269
windows, of which the wooden frames, rotted by moisture
and shrunk by the action of the sun, told how the cold must
penetrate the chambers. The lonely, isolated house re-
minded one of an old tower that Time had forgotten to
demolish. A dim light was visible in the three windows
irregularly placed in the mansard roof that topped this poor
edifice, the remainder of the house was in complete ob-
scurity. The old woman groped her way painfully up the
narrow, unlighted staircase, a rope stretched at the side
of which served the purpose of a banister. She knocked
mysteriously at the door of the apartment in the attic, and
dropped down precipitately upon the chair that was handed
her by an old man.
"Quick, conceal yourself!" she said to him. "Although
we stir abroad so seldom, all we do is known, our every step
is watched."
"What is there new?" asked another old woman from
her place before the fire.
"The man who has been prowling about the house since
yesterday followed me this evening."
At these words the three occupants of the squalid room
exchanged a glance expressive of the deepest terror. The
old man was the least agitated of the three, perhaps because
his was the greatest danger. Under the oppression of great
calamity or the yoke of persecution, a brave man begins, as
we may say, by making the sacrifice of himself; he regards
his days as so many victories wrested from fate. The
looks of the two women, bent on the old man, sTiowed
with sufficient clearness that he was the sole object of
their solicitude.
"Why despair of Grod, my sisters?" said he in deep, im-
pressive accents. "We sang His praises amid the shouts of
the murderers and the groans of the dying at the convent
of the Carmelites. If He saw fit that I should be saved
from that slaughter, it was doubtless to reserve me for a
destiny which, be it what it may, it is my duty to accept
without repining. God protects His people; it is His to
270 BALZAC'S WORKS
dispose of them in accordance with His will. It is of you,
and not of me, that we must think."
"Not so, father," replied one of the two aged females;
"what is our life compared with a priest's ?"
"When I saw myself no longer an inmate of the Abbey
of Chelles, I looked on myself as one dead," declared that
one of the women who had not left the house.
"Here," said she who had just come in, handing the
priest the little blue-covered box — "here are the consecrated
wafers — But hark! I hear some one on the stairs."
All assumed a listening attitude. The sounds ceased.
"Do not be alarmed," said the priest, "if some one
should attempt to gain access to us. A person on whose
fidelity we can rely has it in hand to arrange for crossing
the frontier, and will come to take away the letters that I
have written to the Due de Langeais and the Marquis de
Beaus^ant, to urge them to devise means for getting you
out of this horrid country and saving you from the slow
death by starvation that awaits you here."
"And you will not come with us?" the two nuns softly
exclaimed in an accent almost of despair.
"My place is where there are victims," the priest re-
joined with the utmost simplicity. The nuns looked up
at him in silent admiration.
"Sister Marthe," he continued, addressing the nun who
had gone in quest of the wafers, "the messenger will reply,
'Fiat Voluntas,' to our password, which is 'Hosanna.' "
"There is some one on the stairs!" exclaimed the other
nun, running and opening the door of a secret chamber that
had been arranged among the timbers of the roof.
There could be no mistake this time; in the deep silence
that prevailed they heard the heavy tread of a man as he
came lumbering up the stairs over the bosses and ridges
formed by the mud that had been accumulating and harden-
ing there for many years. With some squeezing the priest
wormed himself into the retreat provided for him, a mere
cupboard, and the nun threw some garments over him.
AN EPISODE UNDER THE TERROR 271
"You may close the door now, Sister Agathe," said he
in a smothered voice.
Scarcely was the priest ensconced in his narrow quarters
when three raps upon the door caused the two holy women
to start violently. They looked at each other helplessly,
neither of them daring to speak a word. They appeared to
be of the same age, sixty or thereabout. Severed from the
world for the last forty years, they were liice plants accus-
tomed to the temperature of a greenhouse, that die if re-
moved to the open air. Habituated to the life of the convent,
it was utterly beyond them to conceive of any other. When
the iron gates were broken down one morning they had
shuddered on discovering that they were free. It is easy to
imagine the effect, amounting almost to imbecility, that the
events of the Revolution had produced in their innocent
souls. Finding the training received at the convent of no
service to them in life's stern realities, incapable even of
comprehending their position, they were like children who,
deserted by their maternal providence after having been
tenderly cared for all their days, should, instead of crying,
have recourse to prayer. And so, in presence of the danger
that they saw threatening them at that juncture, they
remained mute and passive, knowing no other means of
defence than Christian resignation. The man who had
sought entrance interpreted their silence in his own way —
he opened the door and suddenly presented himself before
them. The two nuns shuddered as they recognized in him
the person who had been haunting their neighborhood for
some time past and picking up crumbs of information re-
specting their habits and mode of life; they did not stir, but
stood watching his movements with anxiety and breathless
curiosity, much as an untutored child will silently scrutinize
a stranger. The man was of more than average stature and
stout, but there was nothing either in his face or in his man-
ner and appearance that denoted malevolence. He emulated
the nuns in their immobility, and allowed his gaze to wander
slowly about the chamber in which he found himself.
272 BALZAC'S WORKS
Two straw mats, laid upon the bare boards, served as a
bed for the two nuns. A round table occupied the middle
of the room, on which were displayed a brass candlestick, a
few plates, three knives, and a loaf, a round loaf, of bread.
A consumptive-looking fire was burning on the hearth, and
a small pile of chips and shavings carefully bestowed in a
corner spoke eloquently of the recluses' poverty. The walls
betrayed the bad condition of the roofs, for the ancient coat
of yellow paint that covered them displayed a tracery of
brown stains, running like rivers from ceiling to floor, indi-
cating where the rain-water had penetrated from above. A
holy relic, saved doubtless by pious hands what time the
Abbey of Chelles was sacked, graced the mantel-shelf. The
above articles, with three chairs, two trunks and a crazy
commode, comprised the furniture of the apartment. A
door cut in the wall beside the chimney allowed one to
conjecture that there might be a second chamber.
The inventory of the cell was soon made by the indi-
vidual who had introduced himself under such terrible aus-
pices into the bosom of the little household. An expres-
sion of pity was visible on his face, and he looked kindly
on the two women; his embarrassment was certainly not
less than theirs. But the awkward silence that had para-
lyzed the tongues of all three of them did not last long,
for the stranger at last divined the mental incapacity and
inexperience of the two poor creatures, and said to them
in a voice from which he tried his best to eliminate the
gruflfness —
"I am not here as an enemy, citoyennes — "
He stopped, and, correcting himself, continued —
"Sisters, if any ill befalls you, believe me, 1 shall not
have had a hand in it. I have a favor to request of you."
They still maintained silence.
"If my presence is distasteful to you, if — I am not
wanted here, speak out, I will withdraw; but be assured
that I am entirely devoted to you. If there is any service
that I can render you, command me without hesitation; I
AN EPISODE UNDER THE TERROR 273
alone perhaps am higher than the law, since we no longer
have a king."
His words breathed such an accent of sincerity that
Sister Agathe — she was a relation of the Langeais family,
and her manner seemed to indicate that she had at one time
known the splendor of the court and participated in its
revelries — made haste to point to a chair as an intimation to
the visitor to be seated. There were mingled pleasure and
melancholy on the stranger's face when he grasped the
meaning of the gesture, and he waited to take his place
until he had seen the two ladies of gentle birth assume their
chairs.
"You are harboring," he went on, "a venerable priest
who has not taken the statutory oaths, and who miraculously
escaped the massacre of the Carmelites."
^'Hosanna!'" exclaimed Sister Agathe, interrupting the
stranger and eying him with uneasy curiosity,
"That doesn't seem to me to be his name," he replied.
"But, Monsieur," Sister Marthe eagerly declared, "we
have no priest here, and — "
"You should have your wits about you and be more
cautious," rejoined the stranger, stretching out his hand
and taking a breviary from the table, "I don't suppose
that you are Latin scholars, and — "
He went no further, for the distress that he saw depicted
on the faces of the poor ftuns led him to believe that he had
said too much; they were all a-tremble, and the tears welled
up into their eyes.
"There is no occasion for alarm," said he, frankly and
reassuringly. "I know the name of your guest, and yours
as well. For three days I have known of your distress and
your sacrifices for the venerable Abb^ of — "
" 'Sh!" Sister Agathe naively ejaculated, laying her
finger on her lips.
"You can see, sisters, that if the abominable design of
betraying you had occurred to me, I have had more than
one opportunity of — "
274 BALZAC'S WORKS
The priest, hearing these words, released himself from
his prison and came forward into the room.
"I cannot believe. Monsieur," said he, addressing the
stranger, "that you are one of our persecutors, and I will
trust you. What would you have me do ?"
The priest's generous confidence, the nobility written
on his every feature, would have disarmed assassins. The
mysterious person whose visit had served to animate mo-
mentarily that scene of distress and resignation surveyed
for an instant the group composed of those three beings;
then, lowering his voice to a confidential tone, he addressed
the priest in these terms —
"Father, I am here to entreat you to celebrate a mortuary
mass for the repose of the soul of — of a sacred person whose
remains will never rest in holy ground."
The priest could not help shivering. The two nuns,
who, did not as yet know whom the unknown man might
have in mind, stood by in an attitude of curiosity, their
necks extended, their faces turned on the two interlocu-
tors. The ecclesiastic scrutinized the stranger: the anxiety
depicted on his face was not assumed, his eyes expressed
ardent entreaty.
"Well," replied the priest, "return at midnight, and I
will be prepared to perform the only mortuary service that
it is permitted us to offer in expiation of the crime of which
you speak."
The unknown started, but a satisfaction, at the same
time pleasurable and grave, appeared to triumph over a
secret regret. He went his way, after a respectful leave
taken of the priest and the two holy women, evincing a
sort of mute gratitude that was felt and appreciated by
those three generous souls. About two hours later the
stranger returned, knocked discreetly on the door of the
garret, and was admitted by Mile, de Beauseant, who ush-