their cattle; and a woman, wild with grief because her child had died
of a sudden sickness, meeting a little Frenchman, the Chevalier du
Champsavoys, in the Rue des Tres Pigeons, thrust at his face with her
knitting-needle, and then, Protestant though she was, made the sacred
sign, as though to defeat the evil eye.

This superstition and fanaticism so strong in the populace now and then
burst forth in untamable fury and riot. So that when, on the sixteenth
of December 1792, the gay morning was suddenly overcast, and a black
curtain was drawn over the bright sun, the people of Jersey, working in
the fields, vraicking among the rocks, or knitting in their doorways,
stood aghast, and knew not what was upon them.

Some began to say the Lord's Prayer, some in superstitious terror ran to
the secret hole in the wall, to the chimney, or to the bedstead, or dug
up the earthen floor, to find the stocking full of notes and gold, which
might, perchance, come with them safe through any cataclysm, or start
them again in business in another world. Some began fearfully to sing
hymns, and a few to swear freely. These latter were chiefly carters,
whose salutations to each other were mainly oaths, because of the extreme
narrowness of the island roads, and sailors to whom profanity was as
daily bread.

In St. Heliers, after the first stupefaction, people poured into the
streets. They gathered most where met the Rue d'Driere and the Rue
d'Egypte. Here stood the old prison, and the spot was called the Place
du Vier Prison.

Men and women with breakfast still in their mouths mumbled their terror
to each other. A lobster-woman shrieking that the Day of Judgment was