ose and kissed her softly, but the woman who
read his heart was the woman who had held him at his birth.

By degrees the women crept timidly back into their houses, hiding their
eyes so that they should not see that horrid light against the sky,
while the starving children clung to their breasts or to their skirts,
wailing aloud in terror. The few men there were left, for the most part
of them very old or else mere striplings, gathered together in a hurried
council. Old Mathurin, the miller, and the patriots of the wine-shop
were agreed that there should be no resistance, whatever might befall
them; that it would be best to hide such weapons as they had and any
provisions that still remained to them, and yield up themselves and
their homes with humble grace to the dire foe. "If we do otherwise,"
they said, "the soldiers will surely slay us, and what can a miserable
little hamlet like this achieve against cannon and steel and fire?"

Bernadou alone raised his voice in opposition. His eye kindled, his
cheek flushed, his words for once sprang from his lips like fire.
"What!" he said to them, "shall we yield up our homes and our wives and
our infants without a single blow? Shall we be so vile as to truckle to
the enemies of France and show that we can fear them? It were a shame, a
foul shame; we were not worthy of the name of men. Let us prove to them
that there are people in France who are not afraid to die. Let us hold
our own so long as we can. Our muskets are good, our walls strong, our
woods in this weather morasses that will suck in and swallow them if
only we have tact to drive them there. Let us do what we can. The camp
of the francs-tireurs is but three leagues form us. They will be certain
to come to our aid. At any rate, let us die bravely. We can do little,
that may be; but if every man in France does that little that he can,
that little will be great enough to drive the invaders off the soil."

Mathurin and the others screamed at him and hooted. "You are a fool!"
they shouted. "You will be the undoing of us all. Do you not know that
one shot fired, nay, only one musket found, and the enemy puts a torch
to the whole place?"

"I know," said Bernadou, with a dark radiance in his azure eyes. "But
then it is a choice between disgrace and the flames; let us only take
heed to be clear of the first--the last must rage as God wills."

But they screamed and mouthed and hissed at him: "Oh yes! fine talk,
fine talk! Se