"Who now will guard bewildered youth Safe from the fierce assault of hostile rage?-- Such war can Virtue wage?"
At the very moment when this order was going to be put in execution,Madame de Fleury was sitting in the midst of the children, listening toBabet, who was reading AEsop's fable of _The old man and his sons_.Whilst her sister was reading, Victoire collected a number of twigs fromthe garden: she had just tied them together; and was going, by SisterFrances' desire, to let her companions try if they could break thebundle, when the attention to the moral of the fable was interrupted bythe entrance of an old woman, whose countenance expressed the utmostterror and haste, to tell what she had not breath to utter. To Madame deFleury she was a stranger; but the children immediately recollected herto be the chestnut woman to whom Babet had some years ago restoredcertain purloined chestnuts.
"Fly!" said she, the moment she had breath to speak: "Fly!--they arecoming to seize everything here--carry off what you can--make haste--makehaste!--I came through a by-street. A man was eating chestnuts at mystall, and I saw him show one that was with him the order from CitoyenTracassier. They'll be here in five minutes--quick!--quick!--You, inparticular," continued she, turning to the nun, "else you'll be inprison."
At these words, the children, who had clung round Sister Frances, loosedtheir hold, exclaiming, "Go! go quick: but where? where?--we will go withher."
"No, no!" said Madame de Fleury, "she shall come home with me--mycarriage is at the door."
"Ma belle dame!" cried the chestnut woman, "your house is the worst placeshe can go to--let her come to my cellar--the poorest cellar in thesedays is safer than the grandest palace."
So saying, she seized the nun with honest roughness, and hurried heraway. As soon as she was gone, the children ran different ways, each tocollect some favourite thing, which they thought they could not leavebehind. Victoire alone stood motionless beside Madame de Fleury; herwhole thoughts absorbed by the fear that her benefactress would beimprisoned. "Oh, madame! dear, dear Madame de Fleury, don't stay! don'tstay!"
"Oh, children, never mind these things."
"Don't stay, madame, don't stay! I will stay with them--I will stay--doyou go."
The children hearing these words, and recollecting Madame de Fleury'sdanger, abandoned all their little property, and instantly obeyed herorders to go home to their parents. Victoire at last saw Madame deFleury safe in her carriage. The coachman drove off at a great rate; anda few minutes afterwards Tracassier's myrmidons arrived at the school-house. Great was their surprise when they found only the poor children'slittle books, unfinished samplers, and half-hemmed handkerchiefs. Theyran into the garden to search for the nun. They were men of brutalhabits, yet as they looked at everything round them, which bespoke peace,innocence, and childish happiness, they could not help thinking it was apity to destroy what could do the nation no great harm after all. Theywere even glad that the nun had made her escape, since they were notanswerable for it; and they returned to their employer satisfied for oncewithout doing any mischief; but Citizen Tracassier was of too vindictivea temper to suffer the objects of his hatred thus to elude his vengeance.The next day Madame de Fleury was summoned before his tribunal andordered to give up the nun, against whom, as a suspected person, a decreeof the law had been obtained.
Madame de Fleury refused to betray the innocent woman; the gentlefirmness of this lady's answers to a brutal interrogatory was termedinsolence--she was pronounced a refractory aristocrat, dangerous to thestate; and an order was made out to seal up her goods, and to keep her aprisoner in her own house.