Here hearts, from taint of treason free, Calm victims were of calumny. Thanks to the shade outspread above They banished grief in dreams of love. It heard their sighs and tender fears, They oft bedewed it with their tears. You, whom a time less menacing Shall to this bare enclosure bring, Spare yet awhile the kindly tree Which anguish quelled, and strength upheld, And half bestowed felicity.[23] ----- Footnote 23: Ici des c[oe]urs exempts de crimes, Du soupçon, dociles victimes, Grâce aux rameaux d’un arbre protecteur, En songeant à l’amour oubliaient leur douleur. Il fut le confident de leurs tendres alarmes; Plus d’une fois il fut baigné de larmes. Vous, que des temps moins vigoureux Amèneront dans cette enceinte, Respectez, protégez cet arbre généreux. Il consolait la peine, il rassurait la crainte; Sous son feuillage on fut heureux. ----- After reading these lines, Fanny relapsed into a thoughtful mood. She mentally reviewed her life, calm and even, her loveless marriage, the state of her own mind, interested in music and poetry, inclined to friendship, sober, untroubled; and then she thought of the love lavished on her by a gallant gentleman, which had wrapped her in its protective folds, yet been accepted unresponsively, as she was better able to realize in the silence of her prison. And, recognizing that she was about to die, she broke down. A sweat of mortal agony rose to her forehead. In her anguish she raised her burning eyes to the star-strewn sky, and wringing her hands murmured— “Ah, God, give back to me one little gleam of hope!” At this moment a light footstep approached. It was Rosine, the turnkey’s daughter, coming for a surreptitious talk with her. “Citizeness,” the pretty girl said to her, “to-morrow evening a man who loves you will be waiting on the Avenue de l’Observatoire with a carriage. Take this parcel; it contains clothes like those I am wearing; during supper you will put them on in your bedroom. You are of the same height and fair colouring as myself. In the dusk we might easily be taken one for the other. A warder who is in love with me, and who has engaged in the plot with us, will come up to your room and bring you the basket which I take when I go marketing.