“What became of Cagnat?” I asked when I had recovered myself a little, and reading the answer in the boy’s face, I knelt down, and put my lips to the earth in honor of a brave spirit. “God reward you both!” I cried, as I looked at the lad still clasping the statue in his bandaged arms, and I thought, “These will last, the souls of these children, on which I have wrought my impress;--wood and stone may be destroyed, but this joy no man can take from me!” X THE RIOT August 30. When we were a little calmed down, I said to Robinet, “What is done is done, let us see now what is before us.” For I always think that the best way to act in the present is to look upon yesterday’s doings as ancient history. I had been away from Clamecy about three weeks, and I made him sit down and tell me all that had happened in the interval. The town had been under a double curse, the plague and fear, and when the pestilence abated, fear seemed the more dangerous. Bandits flocked from all the surrounding country, to prey upon the unfortunate place; the people were so terrified that they offered no resistance, and those of the baser sort, driven out their wits by fright, even joined themselves to the robbers. The law had become a dead letter, for of our four Aldermen, one died, two fled, and the Public Prosecutor had also bolted. The Commandant at the Citadel was brave enough, but old, and crippled by gout, besides, having no more brains than you could put in a thimble, he had allowed himself to be torn in pieces. The only official that remained in the town was the fourth Alderman, a man named Racquin, who finding himself deserted by his colleagues, and opposed by this raging mob, was weak, or cunning enough, to yield to it, instead of trying to put a stop to its depredations. He even allowed the mob to set fire to the houses of men against whom he had a grudge for one reason or another, myself among the number. “What are the citizens doing all this time?” I asked. “Nothing, now that their leaders are gone; they are like lambs led to the slaughter.” “Well, how about me, Binet? This old ram has some fight left in him still, so come along!” “You are crazy, Master! What could you do, one man, against hundreds of brigands?” “Do?--the best I can, of course; why should I be afraid of robbers, now that I have not a penny left in the world? Come on, I say.” Now, would you believe it? that boy actually turned a handspring on the road for joy, in spite of his burned hand, and bruises, and began to dance about and shout that this was the greatest sport he had ever heard of. “Hooray!” he cried; “we’ll chase these beggars off the face of the earth!”