ft, an infamous theft. Whites
and Reds rushed to the Church of the Cordeliers, shouting that the
municipality must render them an accounting.

Lescuyer was the secretary of the municipality. His name was thrown to
the crowd, not for having torn down the pontifical decrees--from that
moment he would have had defenders--but for having signed the order to
the keeper of the Mont-de-Piete permitting the removal of the articles
in pawn.

Four men were sent to seize Lescuyer and bring him to the church. They
found him in the street on his way to the municipality. The four men
fell upon him and dragged him to the church with the most ferocious
cries. Once there, Lescuyer understood from the flaming eyes that met
his, from the clinched fists threatening him, the shrieks demanding his
death; Lescuyer understood that instead of being in the house of the
Lord he was in one of those circles of hell forgotten by Dante.

The only idea that occurred to him as to this hatred against him was
that he had caused it by tearing down the pontifical decrees. He climbed
into the pulpit, expecting to convert it into a seat of justice, and in
the voice of a man who not only does not blame himself, but who is even
ready to repeat his action, he said:

"Brothers, I consider the revolution necessary; consequently I have done
all in my power--"

The fanatics understood that if Lescuyer explained, Lescuyer was saved.
That was not what they wanted. They flung themselves upon him, tore him
from the pulpit, and thrust him into the midst of this howling mob, who
dragged him to the altar with that sort of terrible cry which combines
the hiss of the serpent and the roar of the tiger, the murderous zou!
zou! peculiar to the people of Avignon.

Lescuyer recognized that fatal cry; he endeavored to gain refuge at the
foot of the altar. He found none; he fell there.

A laborer, armed with a stick, dealt him such a blow on the head that
the stick broke in two pieces. Then the people hurled themselves upon
the poor body, and, with that mixture of gayety and ferocity peculiar to
Southern people, the men began to dance on his stomach, singing, while
the women, that he might better expiate his blasphemies against the
Pope, cut or rather scalloped his lips with their scissors.

And out of the midst of this frightful group came a cry, or rather a
groan; this death groan said: "In the name of Heaven! in the name of the
Virgin! in the name of humanity! kill me a