urgeois and some women. Before we could draw or even
understand, we were tumbled off our horses and hustled along. On the way
the mob yelled, 'A bas les aristocrates!'

"As they went, others were seized--in fact, every decent-looking man. My
father held me by the wrist, saying: 'Keep cool, Rene. We are not
Catholics. It is the old trouble.' The crush at the Pope's palace was
awful. We were torn apart. I was knocked down. Men went over me, and I
was rolled off the great outer stair and fell, happily, neglected. An
old woman cried to me to run. I got up and went in after the Jourdan mob
with the people who were crowding in to see what would happen. You
remember the great stairway. I was in among the first and was pushed
forward close to the broad dais. Candles were brought. Jourdan--'_coupe
tete_' they called him--sat in the Pope's chair. The rest sat or stood
on the steps. A young man brought in a table and sat by it. The rest of
the great hall was in darkness, full of a ferocious crowd, men and
women.

"Then Jourdan cried out: 'Silence! This is a court of the people. Fetch
in the aristocrats!' Some threescore of scared men and a dozen women
were huddled together at one side, the women crying. Jourdan waited.
One by one they were seized and set before him. There were wild cries of
'Kill! Kill!' Jourdan nodded, and two men seized them one after another,
and at the door struck. The people in the hall were silent one moment as
if appalled, and the next were frenzied and screaming horrible things.
Near the end my father was set before Jourdan. He said, 'Who are you?'

"My father said, 'I am Citizen Courval, a stranger. I am of the
religion, and here on business.' As he spoke, he looked around him and
saw me. He made no sign."

"Ah," said Madame de Courval, "he did not say Vicomte."

"No. He was fighting for his life, for you, for me."

"Go on."

"His was the only case over which they hesitated even for a moment. One
whom they called Tournal said: 'He is not of Avignon. Let him go.' The
mob in the hall was for a moment quiet. Then the young man at the table,
who seemed to be a mock secretary and wrote the names down, got up and
cried out: 'He is lying. Who knows him?' He was, alas! too well known. A
man far back of me called out, 'He is the Vicomte de Courval.' My father
said: 'It is true. I am the Vicomte de Courval. What then?'

"The secretary shrieked: 'I said he lied. Death! Death to the
_ci-devant!_'

"Jourdan