But a clamour interrupted me. 'Ah! yes, yes, yes!' the people cried, men and women; some wept aloud, some signed themselves, some held up their hands to the skies. 'Nevermore will we deny religion,' they cried, 'never more fail in our duties. They shall see how we will follow every office, how the churches shall be full, how we will observe the feasts and the days of the saints! M. Lecamus,' cried two or three together; 'go, tell these Messieurs that we will have masses said for them, that we will obey in everything. We have seen what comes of it when a city is without piety. Never more will we neglect the holy functions; we will vow ourselves to the holy Mother and the saints--' 'And if those ladies wish it,' cried Jacques Richard, 'there shall be as many masses as there are priests to say them in the Hospital of St. Jean.' 'Silence, fellow!' I cried; 'is it for you to promise in the name of the Commune?' I was almost beside myself. 'M. Lecamus. is it for this that they have come?' His head had begun to droop again, and a dimness came over his face. 'Do I know?' he said. 'It was them I longed for, not to know their errand; but I have not yet said all. You are to send two--two whom you esteem the highest--to speak with them face to face.' Then at once there rose a tumult among the people--an eagerness which nothing could subdue. There was a cry that the ambassadors were already elected, and we were pushed forward, M. le Curé and myself, towards the gate. They would not hear us speak. 'We promise,' they cried, 'we promise everything; let us but get back.' Had it been to sacrifice us they would have done the same; they would have killed us in their passion, in order to return to their city--and afterwards mourned us and honoured us as martyrs. But for the moment they had neither ruth nor fear. Had it been they who were going to reason not with flesh and blood, it would have been different; but it was we, not they; and they hurried us on as not willing that a moment should be lost. I had to struggle, almost to fight, in order to provide them with a leader, which was indispensable, before I myself went away. For who could tell if we should ever come back? For a moment I hesitated, thinking that it might be well to invest M. de Bois-Sombre as my deputy with my scarf of office; but then I reflected that when a man goes to battle, when he goes to risk his life, perhaps to lose it, for his people, it is his right to bear those signs which distinguish him from common men, which show in what office, for what cause, he is ready to die.