t my window, from which I kept a watch
upon the Grande Rue, not knowing what might happen--I saw that some
fresh incident had taken place. Very dimly through the darkness I
perceived a crowd, which increased every moment, in front of the
Cathedral. After watching it for a few minutes, I got my hat and went
out. The people whom I saw--so many that they covered the whole middle
of the _Place_, reaching almost to the pavement on the other side--had
their heads all turned towards the Cathedral. 'What are you gazing at,
my friend?' I said to one by whom I stood. He looked up at me with a
face which looked ghastly in the gloom. 'Look, M. le Maire!' he said;
'cannot you see it on the great door?'

'I see nothing,' said I; but as I uttered these words I did indeed see
something which was very startling. Looking towards the great door of
the Cathedral, as they all were doing, it suddenly seemed to me that I
saw an illuminated placard attached to it, headed with the word
'_Sommation_' in gigantic letters. '_Tiens!_' I cried; but when I
looked again there was nothing. 'What is this? it is some witchcraft!' I
said, in spite of myself. 'Do you see anything, Jean Pierre?'

'M. le Maire,' he said, 'one moment one sees something--the next, one
sees nothing. Look! it comes again.' I have always considered myself a
man of courage, but when I saw this extraordinary appearance the panic
which had seized upon me the former night returned, though in another
form. Fly I could not, but I will not deny that my knees smote together.
I stood for some minutes without being able to articulate a word--which,
indeed, seemed the case with most of those before me. Never have I seen
a more quiet crowd. They were all gazing, as if it was life or death
that was set before them--while I, too, gazed with a shiver going over
me. It was as I have seen an illumination of lamps in a stormy night;
one moment the whole seems black as the wind sweeps over it, the next
it springs into life again; and thus you go on, by turns losing and
discovering the device formed by the lights. Thus from moment to moment
there appeared before us, in letters that seemed to blaze and flicker,
something that looked like a great official placard.
'_Sommation!_'--this was how it was headed. I read a few words at a
time, as it came and went; and who can describe the chill that ran
through my veins as I made it out? It was a summons to the people of
Semur by name--myself at the head as