That evening the mother, whom we have seen wandering onward with no settled plan, had walked all day long. This was, to be sure, a matter of every-day occurrence. She kept on her way without pause or rest; for the sleep of exhaustion in some chance corner could no more be called rest than could the stray crumbs that she picked up here and there like the birds be considered nourishment. She ate and slept just enough to keep her alive.

She had spent the previous night in a forsaken barn, – a wreck such as civil wars leave behind them. In a deserted field she had found four walls, an open door, a little straw, and the remains of a roof, and on this straw beneath the roof she threw herself down, feeling the rats glide under as she lay there, and watching the stars rise through the roof. She slept several hours; then waking in the middle of the night, she resumed her journey, so as to get over as much ground as possible before the excessive heat of the day came on. For the summer pedestrian midnight is more favorable than noon.

She followed as best she could the brief directions given her by the Vautortes peasant, and kept as far as possible toward the west. Had there been any one near, he might have heard her incessantly muttering half aloud, “La Tourgue.” She seemed to know no other word, save the names of her children.

And as she walked she dreamed. She thought of the adventures that had befallen her, of all she had suffered and endured, of the encounters, the indignities, the conditions imposed, the bargains offered and accepted, now for a shelter, now for a bit of bread, or simply to be directed on her way. A wretched woman is more unfortunate than a wretched man, inasmuch as she is the instrument of pleasure. Terrible indeed was this wandering journey! But all this would count for nothing if she could but find her children.

On that day her first adventure was in a village through which her route lay; the dawn was barely breaking, and the dusk of night still shrouded all the surrounding objects; but in the principal village street a few doors were half open, and curious faces peeped out of the windows. The inhabitants seemed restless like a startled hive of bees, – a disturbance due to the noise of wheels and the clanking of iron, which had reached their ears.

On the square in front of the church, a frightened group was staring at some object that was descending the hill towards the village. It was a four-wheeled wagon drawn by five horses, whose harness was composed of chains, and upon which could be seen something that looked like a pile of long joists, in the middle of which lay an object whose vague outlines were hidden by a large canvas resembling a pall. Ten horsemen rode in front of the wagon, and ten behind. They wore three-cornered hats, and above their shoulders rose what seemed like the points of naked sabres. The whole procession advanced slowly, its dark outlines sharply defined against the horizon; everything looked black, – the wagon, the harness, and the riders. On entering the village they approached the square with the pale glimmer of the dawn behind them.

It had grown somewhat lighter while the wagon was descending the hill, and now the escort was plainly to be seen, – a procession of ghosts to ail intents, for no man uttered a word.

The horsemen were gendarmes; they really were carrying drawn sabres, and the canvas that covered the wagon was black.

The wretched wandering mother, entering the village from the opposite direction, just as the wagon and the gendarmes reached the square, approached the crowd of peasants and heard voices whispering the following questions and answers, –

“What is that?”

“It’s the guillotine.”

“Where does it come from?”

“From Fougères.”

“Where is it going?”

“I don’t know. They say it is going to some castle near Parigné.”

“Parigné!”

“Let it go wherever it will, so that it does not stop here.”

There was something ghostlike in the combination of this great wagon with its shrouded burden, the gendarmes, the clanking chains of the team, and the silent men, in the early dawn.

The group crossed the square and passed out from the village, which lay in a hollow between two hills. In a quarter of an hour the peasants who had stood there like men petrified saw the funereal procession reappear on the summit of the western hill. The great wheels jolted in the ruts, the chains of the harness rattled as they were shaken by the early morning wind, the sabres shone; the sun was rising, and at a bend of the road all vanished from the sight.

It was at this very moment that Georgette woke up in the library beside her still sleeping brothers, and wished her rosy feet good-morning.