And the good-natured Antoine carried his cheerful countenance among the shivering and dismayed peasantry who were waiting for advice and guidance, and led them to the chateau to ask for relief. The marquis laid his hand upon his heart, and the lady Alice took trinkets from her hair to give to the hungry people before her, who were loud in their praises of her condescension; though, to be sure, as trinkets could not be eaten, and there was nothing eatable for them to be exchanged against, they only served at present to hush little crying babies for a minute or two. In time it was clearly conveyed to the lady that a more effectual measure would be to order the housekeeper to distribute the contents of the larder among the hungry; and to the gentleman, that now was the occasion for his steward to unlock the granary. These stores being soon exhausted, and no more being at once procurable, from the whole neighbouring country having been laid waste, the cottagers were obliged to subsist themselves as well as they could on boiled acorns, stewed nettles, and on the lord’s frogs; a race which seemed destined to extermination, man and the elements having apparently combined against them. As many of the sufferers as yet survive look back upon that dreadful time with a horror which is not lessened even by the political horrors which ensued. Throughout Guienne, the Orleannois, and other provinces, not a score of revolutions could efface the recollections and traditions of the hurricane of July, 1788. Perhaps it may be still a subject of dispute a century hence whether it was charged, in addition to the natural agents of destruction, with a special message to warn the French nation of their approaching social convulsion. Superstition has not yet been abolished in France, any more than in some other countries which have suffered less deplorably from its sway. -------------- CHAPTER II. SIGNS OF THE TIME.