me!"

They were not talking, they were whispering together. A gloomy
sadness was visible upon each face; lips were placed cautiously at the
listener's ear; anxiety could be read in every eye.

One scented misfortune in the very air. Only a month had elapsed since
Louis XVIII. had been, for the second time, installed in the Tuileries
by a triumphant coalition.

The earth had not yet had time to swallow the sea of blood that flowed
at Waterloo; twelve hundred thousand foreign soldiers desecrated the
soil of France; the Prussian General Muffling was Governor of Paris.

And the peasantry of Sairmeuse trembled with indignation and fear.

This king, brought back by the allies, was no less to be dreaded than
the allies themselves.

To them this great name of Bourbon signified only a terrible burden of
taxation and oppression.

Above all, it signified ruin--for there was scarcely one among them who
had not purchased some morsel of government land; and they were assured
now that all estates were to be returned to the former proprietors, who
had emigrated after the overthrow of the Bourbons.

Hence, it was with a feverish curiosity that most of them clustered
around a young man who, only two days before, had returned from the
army.