Part 64 (1/2)
”I mean that I consent Since I cannot decide what it is that I should do, it only rerotesque; but all life is grotesque”
”You will never, never regret it”
”I hope not,” said Andre ”Yet I think it very likely that I shall
And now I had better see Rougane again at once, and obtain from him the other two permits required Then perhaps it will be best that I take theive rateful I I confess that I aht”
CHAPTER XIII SANCTUARY
Into the late afternoon of that endless day of horror with its perpetual alar druastel and Aline sat waiting in that handsoane they waited They realized that, be the reason what it ht--and by now er would not return
They waited without knowing for what They waited for whatever ht betide
At one time early in the afternoon the roar of battle approached the each moment in volume and in horror It was the frenzied clamour of a multitude drunk with blood and bent on destruction Near at hand that fierce wave of huress Followed blows of pikes upon a door and i of tilass, screa through these shrill sounds, the deeper diapason of bestial laughter
It was a hunt of tretched Swiss guards blindly to escape
And they were run to earth in a house in the neighbourhood, and there cruelly done to death by that de acco into a battalion, ca of Marseilles--a song new to Paris in those days:
Allons, enfants de la patrie!
Le jour de gloire est arrive Contre nous de la tyrannie L'etendard sanglant est leve
Nearer it came, raucously bawled by some hundreds of voices, a dread sound that had come so suddenly to displace at least temporarily the merry, trivial air of the ”Ca ira!” which hitherto had been the revolutionary carillon Instinctively M to each other They had heard the sound of the ravishi+ng of that other house in the neighbourhood, without knowledge of the reason What if now it should be the turn of the Hotel Plougastel! There was no real cause to fear it, save that amid a turmoil i, the worstso dreadfully sung, and the thunder of heavily shod feet upon the roughly paved street, passed on and receded They breathed again, almost as if a miracle had saved them, to yield to fresh alar footman, Jacques, the most trusted of her servants, burst into their presence uncere the announcearden wall professed hiht immediately to her presence
”But he looks like a sansculotte, hts and hopes leapt at once to Rougane
”Bring him in,” she commanded breathlessly
Jacques went out, to return presently acco, shabby, and very ample overcoat and a wide-brimmed hat that was turned down all round, and adorned by an enormous tricolour cockade
This hat he re behind hih now in so been carefully dressed It was clubbed, and it carried so footman wondered what it was in the man's face, which was turned from him, that should cause his mistress to out and recoil Then he found hiesture
The newco like a ainst a table, across which he confronted Me horror in her eyes
In the background, on a settle at the salon's far end, sat Aline staring in bewilderh the mask of blood and dust that smeared it, was yet familiar And then the man spoke, and instantly she knew the voice for that of the Marquis de La Tour d'Azyr
”My dear friend,” he was saying, ”forgive ive me if I thrust myself in here without leave, at such a time, in such a itive In the course ofwhich way to turn for safety, I thought of you I told ht find sanctuary”
”You are in danger?”
”In danger?” Alh at the unnecessary question ”If I were to show ht with luck contrive to live for five minutes! My friend, it has been a massacre Some few of us escaped from the Tuileries at the end, to be hunted to death in the streets I doubt if by this tile Swiss survives They had the worst of it, poor devils And as for us--my God! They hate us uise”
He peeled off the shaggy greatcoat, and casting it froeneral livery of the hundred knights of the dagger who had rallied in the Tuileries that