dim and overshadowed, vowed wholly and completely, without reward
or recompense, to the woman worshipped from afar, as that of the
good country _cure_ is vowed to the God who never steps down
from the tabernacle of the altar.

His gaoler was a good-natured _sous-officier_ who, amazed and
horrified at what was going forward, clung to discipline as a
sheet-anchor in the general shipwreck. He felt a rough, uncouth
pity for his prisoners, but this never interfered with the strict
performance of his duties, and Jean, who had no experience of
soldiers' ways, never guessed the man's true character. However,
he grew less and less unbending and taciturn the nearer the army
of order approached the city.

Finally, one day he had told his prisoner, with a wink of the
eye:

"Courage, lad! something's going to turn up soon."

The same afternoon Jean heard a distant sound of musketry; then,
all in a moment, the door of his cell opened and he saw an avalanche
of prisoners roll from one end of the corridor to the other. The
gaoler had unlocked all the cells and shouted the words, "Every
man for himself; run for it!" Jean himself was carried along,
down stairs and passages, out into the prison courtyard, and
pitched head foremost against the wall. By the time he recovered
from the shock of his fall, the prisoners had vanished, and he
stood alone before the open wicket.

Outside in the street he heard the crackle of musketry and saw
the Seine running grey under the lowering smoke-cloud of burning
Paris. Red uniforms appeared on the _Quai de l'Ecole_. The
_Pont-au-Change_ was thick with _federes_. Not knowing where
to fly, he was for going back into the prison; but a body of
_Vengeurs de Lutece_, in full flight, drove him before their
bayonets towards the _Pont-au-Change_. A woman, a _cantiniere_,
kept shouting: "Don't let him go, give him his gruel. He's a
Versaillais." The squad halted on the _Quai-aux-Fleurs_, and Jean
was pushed against the wall of the _Hotel-Dieu_, the _cantiniere_
dancing and gesticulating in front of him. Her hair flying loose
under her gold-laced _kepi_, with her ample bosom and her elastic
figure poised gallantly on the strong, well-shaped limbs, she had
the fierce beauty of some magnificent wild animal. Her little
round mouth was wide open, yelling menaces and obscenities, as she
brandished a revolver. The _Vengeurs de Lutece_, hard-pressed
and dispirited, looked stolidly at their white-faced prisoner
ag