a deep sigh told them that she still lived, and of a struggle within
her; then at last it ceased. Every one burst into tears except Marie.
He, poor child, was still too young to know what death meant.

Annette and the vinedresser's wife closed the eyes of the adorable
woman, whose beauty shone out in all its radiance after death. Then
the women took possession of the chamber of death, removed the
furniture, wrapped the dead in her winding-sheet, and laid her upon
the couch. They lit tapers about her, and arranged everything--the
crucifix, the sprigs of box, and the holy-water stoup--after the
custom of the countryside, bolting the shutters and drawing the
curtains. Later the curate came to pass the night in prayer with
Louis, who refused to leave his mother. On Tuesday morning an old
woman and two children and a vinedresser's wife followed the dead to
her grave. These were the only mourners. Yet this was a woman whose
wit and beauty and charm had won a European reputation, a woman whose
funeral, if it had taken place in London, would have been recorded in
pompous newspaper paragraphs, as a sort of aristocratic rite, if she
had not committed the sweetest of crimes, a crime always expiated in
this world, so that the pardoned spirit may enter heaven. Marie cried
when they threw the earth on his mother's coffin; he understood that
he should see her no more.

A simple, wooden cross, set up to mark her grave, bore this
inscription, due to the cure of Saint-Cyr:--

HERE LIES
AN UNHAPPY WOMAN,
WHO DIED AT THE AGE OF THIRTY-SIX.
KNOWN IN HEAVEN BY THE NAME OF AUGUSTA.