ty done for these creatures? What have we who live at
ease in Versailles done to make them good citizens? But I cease to
argue, my lord, and know that in doing so I am presuming beyond any
rights I might have. Listen, then, with your good heart--for all France
knows the good heart of Monsieur de Calonne--to the intercession of a
woman for three of her dying, neglected, and miserable fellow-men."

"They have a fair and powerful advocate," he said, smiling agreeably.

Calonne no longer resisted her appeal, but wrote the necessary order.
Putting profound gratitude as well as respect into her three parting
curtseys, she flew with it to her chamber.

"Get me an _enrage_," she exclaimed to Jude. An _enrage_ was one of
those lean post-horses specially used for quick travel to and from
Paris, a distance they could make in a couple of hours.

She would trust no one with the Minister's order, but rapidly threw on a
cloak and cap during the absence of the Abbe.

_Enrages_ were generally to be had on short notice day or night, but
this night it seemed as if there were none in all Versailles; her
anxiety and impatience increased, and she paced the room in agony of
mind. At last Jude returned, and announced the vehicle.

Descending hastily, she stepped into it, still commanding the
Abbe to accompany her. As it rattled forward, she kept her eyes
fixed impatiently upon the face of her watch. Half-past
six--three-quarters--seven--the quarter--the half--at length they were
checked at the Chatelet by the crowd surging and swaying around them,
with the wave-like confusion of the riot, heard the musketry, and
learned from a guard who ran to protect her the cause of the trouble,
and that the execution was about to take place on the Place de Greve.

Jude, in cowardly terror, fell back in a stupor, but the coachman was of
that Parisian type to whom popular danger was like champagne, and on the
promise of a louis he lashed his foaming horse to the Place de Greve.
The shrieks of the second victim and the shouts and drums informed
Cyrene only too well what was passing. She leaped from the cabriolet,
and rushed for the platform.

The strange sight of a beautiful Court lady in ball dress, pushing her
way forward in such agitation, had an instantaneous effect on the crowd,
and they opened a way to the centre. Stumbling past them, she threw out
the paper she carried towards the officer-in-command, and fell fainting
at his feet. Hugues de la T