more for unforeseen delays. If you are not back by
eleven o'clock, I shall believe something has happened, and take steps
accordingly.' 'Very well,' said my wife; 'if I am not back by then, you
may think me dead, and do whatever you think best.' And so she and her
mother left me.

"An hour later, quite different news came to hand. Fugitives, seeking
like ourselves safety in the country, told us that the rioting, far from
ceasing, had increased; the streets were encumbered with corpses, and
two people had been murdered with unheard-of cruelty.

"An old man named Bessieres, who had led a simple and blameless
life, and whose only crime was that he had served under the Usurper,
anticipating that under existing circumstances this would be regarded
as a capital crime, made his will, which was afterwards found among his
papers. It began with the following words:

"'As it is possible that during this revolution I may meet my death,
as a partisan of Napoleon, although I have never loved him, I give and
bequeath, etc., etc.

"The day before, his brother-in-law, knowing he had private enemies, had
come to the house and spent the night trying to induce him to flee, but
all in vain. But the next morning, his house being attacked, he yielded,
and tried to escape by the back door. He was stopped by some of the
National Guard, and placed himself under their protection.

"They took him to the Cours St. Louis, where, being hustled by the crowd
and very ineffectually defended by the Guards, he tried to enter the
Cafe Mercantier, but the door was shut in his face. Being broken by
fatigue, breathless, and covered with dust and sweat, he threw himself
on one of the benches placed against the wall, outside the house. Here
he was wounded by a musket bullet, but not killed. At the sight of his
blood shrieks of joy were heard, and then a young man with a pistol in
each hand forced his way through the throng and killed the old man by
two shots fired point blank in his face.

"Another still more atrocious murder took place in the course of the
same morning. A father and son, bound back to back, were delivered over
to the tender mercies of the mob. Stoned and beaten and covered with
each other's blood, for two long hours their death-agony endured, and
all the while those who could not get near enough to strike were dancing
round them.

"Our time passed listening to such stories; suddenly I saw a friend
running towards the house. I went to m