Page:Works of Thomas Carlyle - Volume 04.djvu/48

 'I flung off my nightgown and cap; I put on a coarse unwashed shirt, a worn frock without waistcoat, an old round hat; these things I had sent for, some days ago, in the fear of what might happen.

'The rooms of this corridor had been all emptied but ours. We were four together; whom they seemed to have forgotten: we addressed our prayers in common to the Eternal to be delivered from this peril.'

'Baptiste the turnkey came up by himself, to see us. I took him by the hands; I conjured him to save us; promised him a hundred louis, if he would conduct me home. A noise coming from the grates made him hastily withdraw.

'It was the noise of some dozen or fifteen men, armed to the teeth; as we, lying flat to escape being seen, could see from our windows. "Up-stairs!" said they: "Let not one remain." I took out my penknife; I considered where I should strike myself,'—but reflected 'that the blade was too short,' and also 'on religion.'

Finally, however, between seven and eight o'clock in the morning, enter four men with bludgeons and sabres!—'To one of whom Gérard my comrade whispered, earnestly, apart. During their colloquy I searched everywhere for shoes, that I might lay off the Advocate pumps (pantoufles de Palais) I had on,' but could find none.—'Constant, called le Sauvage, Gérard, and a third whose name escapes me, they let clear off: as for me, four sabres were crossed over my breast, and they led me down. I was brought to their bar; to the Personage with the scarf, who sat as judge there. He was a lame man, of tall lank stature. He recognised me on the streets and spoke to me, seven months after. I have been assured that he was son of a retired attorney, and named Chepy. Crossing the Court called Des Nourrices, I saw Manuel haranguing in tricolor scarf.' The trial, as we see, ends in acquittal and resurrection.

Poor Sicard, from the violon of the Abbaye, shall say but