Page:Ninety-three.djvu/266

 and drew near the gathering of peasants just as the team and the mounted men were coming into the square. In the group of spectators, voices whispered questions and answers,—

"What is that?"

"It is the guillotine passing by."

"Where does it come from?"

"From Fougères."

"Where is it going?"

"I do not know. They say that it is going to a castle toward Parigné."

"Parigné!"

"Let it go wherever it will, provided it doesn't stop here."

This great wagon, with its burden covered with a sort of shroud; these horses; these military men; the noise of these chains; the silence of these riders; the dim light,—all this was ghastly.

The procession crossed the square and left the village; the village was in a hollow between two hills. After a quarter of an hour, the peasants, who had remained as though petrified, saw the gloomy procession come into sight again on the top of the hill toward the west. The large wheels jolted over the road, the horses' chains clanked in the morning wind, the sabres glistened; the sun was rising, there was a turn in the road, they all disappeared.

This was at just the moment when Georgette, in the hall of the library, awoke beside her brothers, who were still asleep, and said good morning to her rosy feet.