Strona 520 z 896

"How, then?" cried madame, contemptuously. "The other world?"

"Does everybody here recall old Foulon, who told the famished

people that they might eat grass, and who died, and went to

Hell?"

"Everybody!" from all throats.

"The news is of him. He is among us!"

"Among us!" from the universal throat again. "And dead?"

"Not dead! He feared us so much--and with reason--that he caused

himself to be represented as dead, and had a grand mock-funeral.

But they have found him alive, hiding in the country, and have

brought him in. I have seen him but now, on his way to the Hotel

de Ville, a prisoner. I have said that he had reason to fear us.

Say all! Had he reason?"

Wretched old sinner of more than threescore years and ten, if he

had never known it yet, he would have known it in his heart of

hearts if he could have heard the answering cry.