ds done in Paris crept across from Carteret or St. Malo, as
men-of-war anchored in the tide-way, and English troops, against the
hour of trouble, came, transport after transport, into the harbour of
St. Heliers, they began to see visions and dream dreams. One peasant
heard the witches singing a chorus of carnage at Rocbert; another saw,
towards the Minquiers, a great army like a mirage upon the sea; others
declared that certain French refugees in the island had the evil eye and
bewitched their cattle; and a woman, wild with grief because her child
had died of a sudden sickness, meeting a little Frenchman, the Chevalier
du Champsavoys, in the Rue des Tres Pigeons, thrust at his face with her
knitting-needle, and then, Protestant though she was, made the sacred
sign, as though to defeat the evil eye.

This superstition and fanaticism so strong in the populace now and then
burst forth in untamable fury and riot. So that when, on the sixteenth
of December 1792, the gay morning was suddenly overcast, and a black
curtain was drawn over the bright sun, the people of Jersey, working in
the fields, vraicking among the rocks, or knitting in their doorways,
stood aghast, and knew not what was upon them.

Some began to say the Lord's Prayer, some in superstitious terror ran to
the secret hole in the wall, to the chimney, or to the bedstead, or dug
up the earthen floor, to find the stocking full of notes and gold, which
might, perchance, come with them safe through any cataclysm, or start
them again in business in another world. Some began fearfully to sing
hymns, and a few to swear freely. These latter were chiefly carters,
whose salutations to each other were mainly oaths, because of the
extreme narrowness of the island roads, and sailors to whom profanity
was as daily bread.

In St. Heliers, after the first stupefaction, people poured into the
streets. They gathered most where met the Rue d'Driere and the Rue
d'Egypte. Here stood the old prison, and the spot was called the Place
du Vier Prison.

Men and women with breakfast still in their mouths mumbled their terror
to each other. A lobster-woman shrieking that the Day of Judgment was
come, instinctively straightened her cap, smoothed out her dress of
molleton, and put on her sabots. A carpenter, hearing her terrified
exclamations, put on his sabots also, stooped whimpering to the stream
running from the Rue d'Egypte, and began to wash his face. A dozen
of his neighbours did