The city had settled down into something like calm. The barricades were not removed, nor did the sentries cease to pace their distance. The feverish excitement had subsided, but anxiety still remained dominant. Would the king suffer the forty thousand men round Paris to remain inactive, and make no attempt to punish those who had broken open his fortress? In spite of the royal promise that the troops should be withdrawn, they remained at their posts. The court, which had at first refused to believe in the fall of the Bastille, when all doubt of the fact disappeared, made light of the circumstance, for they trusted in a few hours to recapture the citadel. But when the king, obstinate for once in his life, refused all solicitations to employ force, then they felt that their hopes were at an end, and the Count d'Artois, the Condés, the Contis, the Polignacs, Vaudreuil, De Broglie, the Prince de Lambesc and others, absconded from France. Necker had left the Polignacs in power at Versailles; they were the first to announce to him at Basle the ruin and dispersion of the three days' ministry. De Breteuil hung on a few days longer, and then emigrated, to act as Louis XVIth's secret minister at foreign courts. Berthier was nowhere to be found, and with him had disappeared all the officers charged with the administration of provisions. Foulon was reported to be sick to death, poisoned by his own hand, in his stately mansion in the Rue du Temple. Gabrielle was sitting one morning with Madame Plomb in the window, and the poor woman had recurred to her dream of a flight to the land of rocks and mountains. 'You know that it is a promise,' said she; 'you assured me that when I escaped from that hateful prison, I should go to the place where I was when a child.' 'But where was it?' asked Gabrielle. 'That I cannot say distinctly. I remember the mountains glittering with snow, and the roar of the falling torrents. I remember the blue lakes----' 'Dear madame,' said Gabrielle, interrupting her, 'your words remind me of what Nicholas and the corporal are continually repeating. You must mean Switzerland.' 'I am not certain,' answered Madame Berthier. 'There are so many mountains in the world. We have ranges of snowy peaks in the south and in the east, and there are the mountains of Auvergne. How can I say that it was not the Pyrenees or the mountains of Dauphiné that I remember?--Why are you blushing, child?' This was asked abruptly as Gabrielle drew her face from the window, and looked down at the needlework on which she was engaged. Directly after a servant announced that there was some one at the door who wanted to speak to Mademoiselle André. 'Show him up here,' said madame. 'Do not stir from your seat, Gabrielle. I must see what it was that made you blush.' The door immediately opened to admit Nicholas, who on entering stood shyly, hat in one hand, and a little statuette in the other.