priests and the government, and some against those who
neglected and offended the Holy Church. Among them there were those who
did not hesitate to say it was our fault, though how we were answerable
they could not tell. We were never at any time of the day or night
without a sound of some one weeping or bewailing herself, as if she were
the only sufferer, or crying out against those who had brought her here,
far from all her friends. By times it seemed to me that I could bear it
no longer, that it was but justice to turn those murmurers
_(pleureuses)_ away, and let them try what better they could do for
themselves. But in this point Madame Martin surpassed me. I do not
grudge to say it. She was better than I was, for she was more patient.
She wept with the weeping women, then dried her eyes and smiled upon
them without a thought of anger--whereas I could have turned them to the
door. One thing, however, which I could not away with, was that Agnes
filled her own chamber with the poorest of the poor. 'How,' I cried,
thyself and thy friend Madame de Bois-Sombre, were you not enough to
fill it, that you should throw open that chamber to good-for-nothings,
to _va-nu-pieds_, to the very rabble?' '_Ma mere,'_ said Madame Martin,
'our good Lord died for them.' 'And surely for thee too, thou
saint-imbecile!' I cried out in my indignation. What, my Martin's
chamber which he had adorned for his bride! I was beside myself. And
they have an obstinacy these enthusiasts! But for that matter her friend
Madame de Bois-Sombre thought the same. She would have been one of the
_pleureuses_ herself had it not been for shame. 'Agnes wishes to aid the
_bon Dieu_, Madame,' she said, 'to make us suffer still a little more.'
The tone in which she spoke, and the contraction in her forehead, as if
our hospitality was not enough for her, turned my heart again to my
daughter-in-law. 'You have reason, Madame,' I cried; 'there are indeed
many ways in which Agnes does the work of the good God.' The
Bois-Sombres are poor, they have not a roof to shelter them save that of
the old hotel in Semur, from whence they were sent forth like the rest
of us. And she and her children owed all to Agnes. Figure to yourself
then my resentment when this lady directed her scorn at my
daughter-in-law. I am not myself noble, though of the _haute
bourgeoisie_, which some people think a purer race.

Long and terrible were the days we spent in this suspense. For ourselves
it