gun, pushed away the others, sprang over the barricade,
and, with a blow of an old shoe, knocked down the insurgent, from whom
he tore the flag. He had afterwards been found under a heap of rubbish
with a slug of copper in his thigh. It was found necessary to make an
incision in order to extract the projectile. Mademoiselle Vatnaz
arrived the same evening, and since then had not quitted his side.

She intelligently prepared everything that was needed for the dressings,
assisted him in taking his medicine or other liquids, attended to his
slightest wishes, left and returned again with footsteps more light than
those of a fly, and gazed at him with eyes full of tenderness.

Frederick, during the two following weeks, did not fail to come back
every morning. One day, while he was speaking about the devotion of the
Vatnaz, Dussardier shrugged his shoulders:

"Oh! no! she does this through interested motives."

"Do you think so?"

He replied: "I am sure of it!" without seeming disposed to give any
further explanation.

She had loaded him with kindnesses, carrying her attentions so far as to
bring him the newspapers in which his gallant action was extolled. He
even confessed to Frederick that he felt uneasy in his conscience.

Perhaps he ought to have put himself on the other side with the men in
blouses; for, indeed, a heap of promises had been made to them which had
not been carried out. Those who had vanquished them hated the Republic;
and, in the next place, they had treated them very harshly. No doubt
they were in the wrong--not quite, however; and the honest fellow was
tormented by the thought that he might have fought against the righteous
cause. Senecal, who was immured in the Tuileries, under the terrace at
the water's edge, had none of this mental anguish.

There were nine hundred men in the place, huddled together in the midst
of filth, without the slightest order, their faces blackened with powder
and clotted blood, shivering with ague and breaking out into cries of
rage, and those who were brought there to die were not separated from
the rest. Sometimes, on hearing the sound of a detonation, they believed
that they were all going to be shot. Then they dashed themselves against
the walls, and after that fell back again into their places, so much
stupefied by suffering that it seemed to them that they were living in a
nightmare, a mournful hallucination. The lamp, which hung from the
arched roof, looked lik