and that it was not so easy to find it, because it
lay in another street, and in an out of the way place, where there was
but very little business carried on, and had no communication with any
high road.

With this information, the chatterer accompanied them to the neat
little inn of the place. The people had only just risen, and were
terrified when they saw the soldiers, for since the attack on the not
far distant district, the whole country was filled with terror. Wine,
bread, and warm drink also revived the weary travellers, and Eustace
and Bertrand with some others kept watch, that they might not be
unexpectedly surprised. "Who lives in the upper story of your house?"
inquired Edmond of the old woman.

"Ah! good heavens!" responded she, "they are poor unfortunate people,
whose property the wicked rebels have burnt. A peasant, a poor cousin
of mine, has now fled to me with his daughter and his sister's son, and
who knows whether the flambeau of wrath, with which the Lord of Hosts
in his anger will light us home, is not already on its way to our
little cottage. For where is safety, or security now a days as
formerly? Verily, all is affliction and warfare, and the strangest
fatality drives men here and there, as has happened only in old
marvelous stories, and the troubles only increase, and suspicion
becomes greater. Where one only sees a soldier, one might creep into a
mole's hole, even though one should be of the very best and exact
faith."

"Is your trumpeter not come back yet?"

"He must have clean disappeared," answered the old woman; "but my
foolish husband grieves about the knave, and thinks that some
misfortune must have happened to him in the mountains, because the long
bellows was already old and broken down, and is sometimes troubled with
a bad cough. As if it mattered much about such vagabonds, when so many
respectable people bite the grass, who have more connexion and
authority than the adventurer, who wants to play Moonseignor here."

"Aye, truly," said the landlord, "but how goes it though with the
Catholics, particularly with the poor clergy, as well as with the old,
venerable lord there, who has now fled likewise? Some of them are said
to have already arrived at Florac yesterday. The convents too suffer. A
wayfarer arrived here in the night, who brought intelligence of an
attack on a castle, where several holy women had been on a visit, who
may belong to Nismes or Montpellier. Crosses and misery