ng of Rome, the ministers, the new princes and dukes, and
all the great world, were running away toward Blois, and abandoning the
capital to the enemy, while the workingmen in blouses, who gained
nothing from the Empire, but to be forced to give their children to
defend it, were gathered around the town-house by thousands, begging
for arms to defend the honor of France; and the Old Guard repulsed them
with the bayonet!

At this Father Goulden exclaimed:

"That is enough, Zebede, hold! stop there, and let us talk of something
else."

He had suddenly grown very pale; at this moment Mother Gredel returned
from vespers, and seeing us all so quiet, and Mr. Goulden so disturbed,
asked:

"What has happened?"

"We were speaking of the Empress and of the ministers of the Emperor,"
replied Father Goulden, forcing a laugh.

Said she, "I am not astonished that the wine turns against you. Every
time I think of them, if by accident I look in the glass, I see that it
turns me quite livid. The beggars! fortunately, they are gone."

Zebede did not like this. Mr. Goulden observed it and said, "Well!
France is a great and glorious country all the same. If the new nobles
are worth no more than the old ones, the people are firm. They work in
vain against them. The bourgeois, the artisan, and the peasant are
united, they have the same interests and will not give up what they
have gained, nor let them again put their feet on their necks. Now,
friends, let us go and take the air, it is late, and Madame Gredel and
Catherine have a long way to go to Quatre Vents. Joseph will go with
them."

"No," said Catherine, "Joseph must stay with his friend to-day, and we
will go home alone."

"Very well! so be it! on a day like this friends should be together,"
said Mr. Goulden.

We went out arm in arm, it was dark, and after embracing Catherine
again at the Place d'Armes she and her aunt took their way home, and
after having taken a few turns under the great lindens we went to the
"Wild Man" and refreshed ourselves with some glasses of foaming beer.
Mr. Goulden described the siege, the attack at Pernette, the sorties at
Bigelberg, at the barracks above, and the bombardment. It was then
that I learned for the first time that he had been captain of a gun,
and that it was he who had first thought of breaking up the
melting-pots in the foundry to make shot. These stories occupied us
till after ten o'clock. At last Zebede left us to go