‘A storm is rising,’ said Percenez, pointing over the hill. ‘Will the king listen to us?’ ‘Yes, he will listen.’ ‘But will he redress our wrong?’ ‘We shall make him. He has put the means into our hands.’ The first roll of thunder was heard. ‘We shall be relieved of the taxes, the _gabelle_, the _corvée_?’ ‘I do not say that; but the taxes will be levied on all alike.’ ‘What! will the abbé and the noble pay six sous a livre for salt, and pay the taille?’ ‘Certainly, we shall make them pay. We pay, so must they.’ Again André leaned back and exploded into laughter, whilst from over the hill the forked lightnings darted, and the thunder boomed. The two men watched the approach of the tempest. The mutter of the thunder was now unceasing, and the vault was illumined with continuous flashes. ‘I must hasten home,’ said Etienne Percenez, ‘or my old dame will die of fright at being alone in the storm.’ ‘And I will go in,’ said André. But he did not go in at once; he stood in his door. As Percenez crossed the foot-bridge, he heard his friend bellow. Thinking he was calling, the little brown man turned his head; he saw that André was laughing. ‘I cannot help it,’ roared the peasant; ‘to think of the nobles, the intendants, and the abbés, paying taxes!’ and he roared again. Then he signed to Percenez. ‘The storm is coming on.’ ‘Very, very fast,’ cried the other, beginning to run. Matthias went inside the house, and seated himself before the fireless hearth, and listened to the wind growling round the eaves. The rain splashed against the little window, glazed with round panes. There was a leak in the roof, and through it the water dribbled upon the floor of the bedroom overhead. It became so dark in the chamber, that Matthias would have lit a candle, had not candles cost money. The water swept down the window in waves; the house trembled at each explosion of the thunder. Going to the door, the peasant saw by the lightning no part of the landscape, for the rain falling in sheets obscured everything. He shut the door; the flashes dazzled him. Then he threw himself down on a bench, and put his hands to his ears, to shut out the detonations of the thunder, and began to think about Necker and the States-general, and the probability of the nobles and clergy paying taxes, and this idea still presented itself to him in such a novel and ludicrous light, that again he laughed aloud. All at once an idea of another kind struck him, as his hand touched the floor and encountered water. He leaped with a cry to his feet and splashed over the floor. He rushed to the door. The darkness was clearing, and by the returning light, as the rain began to cease, and the surrounding hills to become visible, he observed every lane converted into a torrent of brown fluid; the roads had become watercourses, and were pouring turbid streams through the gates into the fields and meadows. The Charentonne had risen, and was rising every moment.