frame of mind than was then the case; and this may explain
why she ascended, instead of descending, the Rue St. Honore. Her only
thought was to get away from the Palais Royal, and this she was doing;
she had heard it said that Chaillot looked out upon the Seine, and she
accordingly directed her steps towards the Seine. She took the Rue de
Coq, and not being able to cross the Louvre, bore towards the church of
Saint Germain l'Auxerrois, proceeding along the site of the colonnade
which was subsequently built there by Perrault. In a very short time she
reached the quays. Her steps were rapid and agitated; she scarcely felt
the weakness which reminded her of having sprained her foot when very
young, and which obliged her to limp slightly. At any other hour in
the day her countenance would have awakened the suspicions of the least
clear-sighted, attracted the attention of the most indifferent. But at
half-past two in the morning, the streets of Paris are almost, if not
quite, deserted, and scarcely is any one to be seen but the hard-working
artisan on his way to earn his daily bread or the roistering idlers of
the streets, who are returning to their homes after a night of riot and
debauchery; for the former the day was beginning, and for the latter
it was just closing. La Valliere was afraid of both faces, in which her
ignorance of Parisian types did not permit her to distinguish the type
of probity from that of dishonesty. The appearance of misery alarmed
her, and all she met seemed either vile or miserable. Her dress, which
was the same she had worn during the previous evening, was elegant even
in its careless disorder; for it was the one in which she had presented
herself to the queen-mother; and, moreover, when she drew aside the
mantle which covered her face, in order to enable her to see the way she
was going, her pallor and her beautiful eyes spoke an unknown language
to the men she met, and, unconsciously, the poor fugitive seemed
to invite the brutal remarks of the one class, or to appeal to the
compassion of the other. La Valliere still walked on in the same way,
breathless and hurried, until she reached the top of the Place de Greve.
She stopped from time to time, placed her hand upon her heart, leaned
against a wall until she could breathe freely again, and then continued
on her course more rapidly than before. On reaching the Place de Greve
La Valliere suddenly came upon a group of three drunken men, reeling and