urns, she was a good little
worshipper, but given to harmless pranks withal. Between the long
church services, if she went into the country with girls of her own
age, she made no fuss about doing as they did, but would sing and
dance away and flourish her tambourine. But such days were few. Most
times her chief delight was to climb up to the top of the house, to
bring herself nearer heaven, to obtain a glimpse of daylight, to look
out, perhaps, on some small strip of sea, or some pointed peak in the
vast wilderness of hills. Thenceforth to her eyes they were serious
still, but less unkindly than before, less bald and leafless, in a
garment thinly strewn with arbutus and larch.

This dead town of Toulon numbered 26,000 inhabitants when the plague
began. It was a huge throng cooped up in one spot. But from this
centre let us take away a girdle of great convents with their backs
upon the ramparts, convents of Minorites, Ursulines, Visitandines,
Bernardines, Oratorians, Jesuits, Capuchins, Recollects; those of the
Refuge, the Good Shepherd, and, midmost of all, the enormous convent
of Dominicans. Add to these the parish churches, parsonages, bishop's
palace, and it seems that the clergy filled up the place, while the
people had no room at all, to speak of.[109]

[109] See the work by M. d'Antrechaus, and the excellent
treatise by M. Gustave Lambert.

On a centre so closely thronged, we may guess how savagely the plague
would fasten. Toulon's kind heart was also to prove her bane. She
received with generous warmth some fugitives from Marseilles. These
are just as likely to have brought the plague with them, as certain
bales of wool to which was traced the first appearance of that
scourge. The chief men of the place were about to fly, to scatter
themselves over the country. But the First Consul, M. d'Antrechaus, a
man of heroic soul, withheld them, saying, with a stern air, "And what
will the people do, sirs, in this impoverished town, if the rich folk
carry their purses away?" So he held them back, and compelled all
persons to stay where they were. Now the horrors of Marseilles had
been ascribed to the mutual intercourse of its inhabitants.
D'Antrechaus, however, tried a system entirely the reverse, tried to
isolate the people of Toulon, by shutting them up in their houses.
Two huge hospitals were established, in the roadstead and in the
hills. All who did not come to these, had to keep at home on pain of
death.