ty, an old
countrywoman, wearing the coif of the Limousin peasantry, accosted him
to ask if the Monsieur Marat who had been murdered was not Monsieur le
Cure Mara, of Saint-Pierre-de-Queyroix.

VIII

It was the eve of the Festival, a calm, bright evening, and Elodie
hanging on Evariste's arm, was strolling with him about the _Champ de la
Federation_. Workmen were hastily completing their task of erecting
columns, statues, temples, a "mountain," an altar of the Fatherland.
Huge symbolic figures, Hercules (representing the people) brandishing
his club, Nature suckling the Universe from her inexhaustible breasts,
were rising at a moment's notice in the capital that, tortured by famine
and fear, was listening for the dreaded sound of the Austrian cannon on
the road from Meaux. La Vendee was making good its check before Nantes
by a series of startling victories. A ring of fire and flame and hate
was drawn about the great revolutionary city.

And meantime, she was preparing a superb welcome, like the sovereign
state of a vast empire, for the deputies of the primary Assemblies which
had accepted the Constitution. Federalism was on its knees; the
Republic, one and indivisible, would surely vanquish all its enemies.

Waving his arm towards the thronged expanse:

"There it was," cried Evariste, "that on the 17th July, '91, the
infamous Bailly ordered the people to be shot down at the foot of the
altar of the fatherland. Passavant, the grenadier, who witnessed the
massacre, returned to his house, tore his coat from his back and cried:
'I have sworn to die with Liberty; Liberty is no more, and I fulfil my
oath,'--and blew out his brains."

All this time artists and peaceful citizens were examining the
preparations for the festival, their faces showing as joyless a joy in
life as their lives were dull and joyless; to their minds the mightiest
events shrank into insignificance and grew as insipid as they were
themselves. Couple by couple they went, carrying in their arms or
holding by the hand or letting them run on in front children as
unprepossessing as their parents and promising to grow up no whit
happier, who in due course would give birth to children of their own as
poor in spirit and looks as they. Yet now and again a young girl would
pass, tall and fair and desirable, rousing in young men a not ignoble
passion to possess, and in the old regret for the bliss they had missed.

Near the _Ecole Militaire_ Evariste