Madame Gosner had done the true work of her lifetime when she saw her husband set free from the Bastille. Then if all the sweet womanhood of her nature had not been embittered by the radical fury of the times, her own reward would have been assured. But, instead of a wife suffering and toiling for a beloved husband’s freedom, this woman had become an avenger—a patriot—that most loathsome thing, a female demagogue. It was painful but not strange that the husband for whom she had toiled, suffered, and almost died, should have failed to recognize in this woman the sweet young wife he had left in that vineyard home. Marguerite was to him now what the wife had been then. His tortured memory could neither associate this amazon with his wife, or the lovely girl with the child he had left with her. He knew that each represented the other, but could not feel it. To him Marguerite was the Therese of his memory; the little child haunted him like a dream, nothing more. As for the woman, he was afraid of her. In her enthusiasm she had become his persecutor. It was she who forced him into crowds, and turned the fierce eyes of a clamorous mob upon him. It was she who called down a storm of curses on the sovereigns of France whenever his white hair was seen. It was she who filled their humble apartments day and night with red-capped men and hideous women, who swarmed around the sensitive old man like birds of prey. So oppressive and terrible did this become at last, that the old man crept from his home with cautious stealth, and sometimes remained away for hours, no human creature knowing where he went. More than once he remained out for days, and search the streets as they might, no one could find him. Madame Gosner was baffled and defeated in her wild ambition. Neither her husband or daughter entered into her projects or her hatred of the royal family. The life this perverted woman led bore with equal force upon her daughter Marguerite, who gladly escaped from the confusion in her own home, to the sad quiet of Dame Doudel’s apartments. This kind old benefactress gave her in all tenderness the love and protection which springs so naturally out of mutual sorrow. But the time came at last when both Marguerite and her helpless father were forced to appear among the insurgents. Months had swept by swiftly, as time goes when nations plunge onward to rebellion. Paris was once more in open revolt. Her people, with one of those popular impulses that shake the foundations of a government, had resolved to besiege the Assembly in its halls and the king in his palace.