cort. They fell into line and the little procession
started.

From the Conciergerie to the Place de la Revolution the cart was
followed by a hooting, jelling crowd of men, women and children, who
sang coarse songs and hurled insults in the faces of their victims.
These last seemed insensible to the indignities heaped upon them. On one
side of the cart an aged man and a youth were seated side by side.
Crowded close one against the other, they did not, along the entire
route, once cease to cry: "Vive le Roi!" One of their companions, a
Republican, accused of _Moderantisme_, regarded them with an air of
ironical compassion. A priest stood in the centre of the cart,
surrounded by three women, reciting prayers and canticles with them.
Dolores, who was leaning upon Coursegol's shoulder, seemed to be
entirely unconscious of what was passing around her. Grief, cold,
fatigue and the rough jolting of the vehicle had reduced her to a
condition of pitiable weakness. Coursegol was distressed to see her in
this state, and to be powerless to succor her. He did not think of
himself; he thought only of her.

When they came in sight of the Place de la Revolution, where the
terrible guillotine towered up grim and ghastly against the horizon,
Dolores trembled, and, closing her eyes, whispered:

"I am afraid!"

"Oh! my dearest little one, do not lose courage," said Coursegol, with
all a father's tenderness. "I am here, but I can do nothing to save you
from these horrors. But be brave and hopeful. Only a moment more and we
shall find peace in the grave and in the arms of our blessed Lord."

The cart jolted onward through the dense and jeering crowd until it
reached the foot of the steps leading to the awful guillotine. The aged
man and his youthful companion were yet crying "Vive le Roi!" The
Republican, accursed of _Moderantisme_, was still regarding them with an
air of ironical compassion. The priest was yet reciting prayers and
canticles with the three women. None of these unfortunates paid the
slightest attention either to the hooting mob or the dreadful doom from
which but a few instants separated them.

The cart suddenly stopped and the condemned were roughly ordered to
leave it. They did so mechanically and without resistance. The
executioner's assistants seized upon them, dragging them into an open
space, as if, instead of human beings, they had been merely dumb
animals, awaiting slaughter in a butcher's shambles. The sans-cul