appetite for bread. So take my advice,' she continued, 'and go back to
where you came from.'

"This advice was the last I could make up my mind to follow, so we went
on, but found a strong guard at the gate, and saw that it would be
impossible to get through without being recognised. At the same time,
the cries and the reports of firearms from within were coming nearer; it
would therefore have been to court certain death to advance, so we
retraced our steps. In passing again through the village of Saint-Just
we met once more our armed peasants. But this time they burst out into
threats on seeing us, shouting, 'Let us kill them! Let us kill them!'
Instead of running away, we approached them, assuring them that we were
Royalists. Our coolness was so convincing that we got through safe and
sound.

"On getting back to the captain's I threw myself on the sofa, quite
overcome by the thought that only that morning my wife had been beside me
under my protection, and that I had let her go back to the town to a
cruel and inevitable death. I felt as if my heart would break, and
nothing that our host and my friend could say gave me the slightest
comfort. I was like a madman, unconscious of everything round me.

"M______ went out to try to pick up some news, but in an instant we
heard him running back, and he dashed into the room, calling out:

"'They are coming! There they are!'

"'Who are coming?' we asked.

"'The assassins!'