ible? Who would have thought it?--What brigands!"

She cried out,--

"Is this then the Government?"

"Yes," I said to her.

We finished undressing the child. He had a top in his pocket. His head
rolled from one shoulder to the other; I held him and I kissed him on
the brow; Versigny and Bancel took off his stockings. The grandmother
suddenly started up.

"Do not hurt him!" she cried.

She took the two little white and frozen feet in her old hands, trying
to warm them.

When the poor little body was naked, they began to lay it out. They took
a sheet from the clothes-press.

Then the grandmother burst into bitter lamentation.

She cried out,--

"They shall give him back to me!"

She drew herself up and gazed at us, and began to pour forth incoherent
utterances, in which were mingled Bonaparte, and God, and her little
one, and the school to which he went, and her daughter whom she had
lost, and even reproaches to us. She was livid, haggard, as though
seeing a vision before her, and was more of a phantom than the dead
child.

Then she again buried her face in her hands, placed her folded arms on
her child, and once more began to sob.

The woman who was there came up to me, and without saying a word, wiped
my mouth with a handkerchief. I had blood upon my lips.

What could be done? Alas! We went out overwhelmed.

It was quite dark. Bancel and Versigny left me.

[26] "Les Chatiments."

CHAPTER II.

WHAT HAPPENED DURING THE NIGHT--THE MARKET QUARTER

I came back to my lodging, 19, Rue Richelieu.

The massacre seemed to be at an end; the fusillades were heard no
longer. As I was about to knock at the door I hesitated for a moment; a
man was there who seemed to be waiting. I went straight up to this man,
and I said to him,--

"You seem to be waiting for somebody?"

He answered,--

"Yes."

"For whom?"

"For you."

And he added, lowering his voice, "I have come to speak to you."

I looked at this man. A street-lamp shone on him. He did not avoid the
light.

He was a young man with a fair beard, wearing a blue blouse, and who had
the gentle bearing of a thinker and the robust hands of a workman.

"Who are you?" I asked him.

He answered,--"I belong to the Society of the Last-makers. I know you
very well, Citizen Victor Hugo."

"From whom do you come?" I resumed.

He answered still in a whisper,--

"From Citizen King."

"Very good," said I.

He then told me his name. As he