FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   20   21   22   23   24   25   26   27   28   29   30   31   32   33   34   35   36   37   38   39   40   41   42   43   44  
45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   >>   >|  
ed; and I did so with an eagerness as if the world depended on my haste. At any other time I would have bethought me of my disobedience to the pere's commands, and looked forward to meeting him with shame and sorrow, but now I felt a kind of importance in the charge intrusted to me. I regarded my mission as something superior to any petty consideration of self, while the very proximity in which I had stood to peril and death made me seem a hero in my own eyes. At last I reached the street where we lived, and, almost breathless with exertion, gained the door. What was my amazement, however, to find it guarded by a sentry, a large, solemn-looking fellow, with a tattered cocked-hat on his head, and a pair of worn striped trousers on his legs, who cried out, as I appeared, 'Halte-la!' in a voice that at once arrested my steps. 'Where to, youngster?' said he, in a somewhat melted tone, seeing the shock his first words had caused me. 'I am going home, sir,' said I submissively; 'I live at the third storey, in the apartment of the Pere Michel.' 'The Pere Michel will live there no longer, my boy; his apartment is now in the Temple,' said he slowly. 'In the Temple!' said I, whose memory at once recalled my father's fate; and then, unable to control my feelings, I sat down upon the steps and burst into tears. 'There, there, child, you must not cry thus,' said he; 'these are not days when one should weep over misfortunes; they come too fast and too thick on all of us for that. The pere was your tutor, I suppose?' I nodded. 'And your father--where is he?' 'Dead.' He made a sign to imitate the guillotine, and I assented by another nod. 'Was he a Royalist, boy?' 'He was an officer in the Garde du Corps,' said I proudly. The soldier shook his head mournfully, but with what meaning I know not. 'And your mother, boy?' 'I do not know where she is,' said I, again relapsing into tears at the thought of my utter desolation. The old soldier leaned upon his musket in profound thought, and for some time did not utter a word. At last he said-- 'There is nothing but the Hotel de Ville for you, my child. They say that the Republic adopts all the orphans of France. What she does with them I cannot tell.' 'But I can, though,' replied I fiercely; 'the Noyades or the Seine are a quick and sure provision; I saw eighty drowned one morning below the Pont Neuf myself.' 'That tongue of yours will bring you into trou
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   20   21   22   23   24   25   26   27   28   29   30   31   32   33   34   35   36   37   38   39   40   41   42   43   44  
45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

soldier

 

thought

 

Temple

 

father

 

Michel

 

apartment

 

imitate

 

assented

 

guillotine

 
misfortunes

suppose
 
nodded
 

fiercely

 
replied
 

Noyades

 
provision
 
tongue
 

eighty

 

drowned

 

morning


France

 

orphans

 
meaning
 
mother
 

relapsing

 

mournfully

 

officer

 

proudly

 

desolation

 

adopts


Republic

 

musket

 

leaned

 

profound

 

Royalist

 

proximity

 

superior

 
consideration
 

exertion

 

breathless


gained

 

amazement

 
reached
 

street

 

mission

 

bethought

 
disobedience
 
depended
 

eagerness

 
commands