n always kept on his work
while listening to them, and when it was done he would turn to them and
say, "Here is your watch, Mr. Christopher or Mr. Nicholas; it is so and
so much." He did not seem to be interested in these matters, and it
was only when one and another would speak of the national property, of
the rebellion of twenty-five years, and of expiating past crimes, that
he would take off his spectacles and raise his head to listen, and
would say with an air of surprise, "Pshaw! well! well! that is fine!
that is, Mr. Claude! indeed you astonish me. These young men preach so
well then? Well, if the work were not so pressing, I would go and hear
them. I need instruction also."

I always kept thinking that he would change his mind, and the next
evening as we were finishing our supper I was happy enough to hear him
say good-humoredly:

"Joseph, are you not curious to hear these preachers? They tell so
many fine things of them, that I want to hear how it is for myself."

"Oh! Mr. Goulden, I should like nothing better! but we must lose no
time, for the church is always full by the second stroke of the bell."

"Very well! let us go," said he, rising and taking down his hat. "I am
curious to see how it is. Those people astonish me. Come!"

We went out; the moon was shining so brightly that we could recognize
people as easily as in broad daylight. At the corner of the rue
Fouquet we saw that even the steps of the church were already covered
with people. Two or three old women, Annette Petit, Mother Balaie, and
Jeannette Baltzer, with their big shawls wrapped closely round them,
and the long fringes of their bonnets over their eyes, hurried past us,
when Father Goulden exclaimed, "Here are the old women! Ha! ha! ha!
always the same!"

He laughed, and as he went on said, that since Father Colin's time
there had never been so many people seen at the evening service. I
could not believe that he was speaking of the old landlord of the
"Three Roses," opposite the infantry barracks, so I said:

"He was a priest, Mr. Goulden?"

"No, no," he answered smiling, "I mean old Colin. In 1792, when we had
a club in the church, everybody could preach; but Colin spoke best of
all. He had a magnificent voice, and said many forcible and true
things, and the people came from far and near, from Saverne and
Saarburg, and even still farther away to hear him; women and girls,
'citoyennes' as they called them then, filled th