She was the one, my children, for stories of the Terror! Everybody around me knew many such stories, for that matter,--my father particularly, if he had only chosen to speak. He had been a Blue; and his obstinate silence was no doubt due to prudence in a part of the country that was so full of Chouans. The confusion was such in the kitchen, with everybody wanting to be useful, to carry in branches of fir, of broom, and of holly; the noise was so deafening on account of the hammering of nails and the rattling of pots and kettles; and then there came such a clamor from without,--ringing of bells, firing of guns, songs, conversations, and clatter of wooden shoes,--that it seemed like the din of a fair at the very climax of its animation. At half-past eleven the cry, "Eutru Person! Eutru Person!" ("The rector! The rector!") resounded all along the street. It was taken up in the kitchen, and all the men started out immediately. The women alone remained with the family. When the rector reached our door, there was a moment of profound silence. He dismounted. It was I who had the honor of holding his nag by the bridle; that is, I was supposed to do so, but somebody else always did it for me. Heaven knows there was no need of holding the poor beast anyway. M. Moizan walked up three steps to the landing, turned toward the crowd that stood below him, hat in hand, removed his own hat, and said, after making the sign of the cross, "_Angelus Domini_ nuntiavit Mariæ." A thousand voices responded. When the prayer was over, he entered the house, spoke cordially to my father and mother, to M. Ozon, the mayor, who had just arrived from Pénic-Pichon, and to M. Oillo, the blacksmith, who was also the justice's clerk. Then he proceeded to the benediction of the Yule log. My father and mother stood on the left-hand side of the hearth. Those women whom their importance or their intimate terms with the family permitted to remain in the sanctuary, which in this case means the kitchen, knelt in a semi-circle around the hearth. The men were crowded together in the hall, the door of which was left open, and they overflowed into the street as far as the graveyard. Every now and then a woman who had been detained by some domestic care cleft the crowd and came forward to where the others were kneeling. Aunt Gabrielle, arrayed in her mantle, which always bespoke a solemn occasion, knelt in the middle of the semi-circle, directly in front of the Yule log, with a holy-water basin and a branch of box beside her. She started a hymn which all the assistants repeated in chorus. I have forgotten the words of that hymn, and I really regret it. The air was monotonous and plaintive, like all those that were sung at our firesides. However, it contained a crescendo at the moment of the benediction which generally sent a shiver through me, producing what is commonly known as goose-flesh.