religious commandment.

She began again with her lamentations on the dearness of provisions, and
again Gamelin demanded taxation as the only remedy for these evils.

But she shrilled:

"There is no money left in the country. The _emigres_ have carried it
all off with them. There is no confidence left either. Everything is
desperate."

"Hush, mother, hush!" protested Gamelin. "What matter our privations,
our hardships of a moment? The Revolution will win for all time the
happiness of the human race."

The good dame sopped her bread in her wine; her mood grew more cheerful
and she smiled as her thoughts returned to her young days, when she used
to dance on the green in honour of the King's birthday. She well
remembered too the day when Joseph Gamelin, cutler by trade, had asked
her hand in marriage. And she told over, detail by detail, how things
had gone,--how her mother had bidden her: "Go dress. We are going to the
Place de Greve, to Monsieur Bienassis' shop, to see Damiens drawn and
quartered," and what difficulty they had to force their way through the
press of eager spectators. Presently, in Monsieur Bienassis' shop, she
had seen Joseph Gamelin, wearing his fine rose-pink coat and had known
in an instant what he would be at. All the time she sat at the window to
see the regicide torn with red-hot pincers, drenched with molten lead,
dragged at the tail of four horses and thrown into the flames, Joseph
Gamelin had stood behind her chair and had never once left off
complimenting her on her complexion, her hair and her figure.

She drained the last drop in her cup and continued her reminiscences of
other days:

"I brought you into the world, Evariste, sooner than I had expected, by
reason of a fright I had when I was big. It was on the Pont-Neuf, where
I came near being knocked down by a crowd of sightseers hurrying to
Monsieur de Lally's execution. You were so little at your birth the
surgeon thought you would not live. But I felt sure God would be
gracious to me and preserve your life. I reared you to the best of my
powers, grudging neither pains nor expense. It is fair to say, my
Evariste, that you showed me you were grateful and that, from childhood
up, you tried your best to recompense me for what I had done. You were
naturally affectionate and tender-hearted. Your sister was not bad at
heart; but she was selfish and of unbridled temper. Your compassion was
greater than ever was hers for the unfortunate. Wh