“I had a wife once, bright as a flower, and they told me I was going to her; but when I cried out for her, a woman of the people came,—proud, grand, noisy. It troubled me, it troubled me!” Here the man pressed both hands to his bosom, and his beard shook passionately. “But your wife is still living? I know the whole sad story,” said Louison. “My wife! She called herself that. I saw her carrying a flag in her hand, and wearing a cockade on her bosom. There was fire in her eyes, and specks of foam on her lips. She looked straight at the sun, and cried out, with a host of fierce, angry women, ‘Bread or blood! Bread or blood!’ Then I knew this woman was _not_ my wife.” “Ah! I know well who it is—you speak of Madame Gosner. There is no voice at the clubs more powerful than hers. She leads the women and half the men of Paris with her enthusiasm and her force of will; Theroigne, of Liege, is not more powerful.” “My wife was young, sweet, gentle. She desired no power; but only asked for the pleasure of leading our child.” “But your wrongs have made her a patriot—a leader among downtrodden women and great men.” The old man shook his head sadly. “The greatest wrong that can be done to any man is to deprive him of a wife he loves.” “But you are not deprived of this great woman. She is still your wife.” “Then let her go back to the vineyards which grew around our home, out of this turmoil, where human happiness has no root.” “But that would be to cast away her power, and darken her own glory.” “Power over the vile passions of madmen; the glory which bathes itself crimson in blood! What has any man’s wife in common with such things as these?” “Then you scoff at a revolution in which women go breast to breast with brave men?” “Scoff? No; it is long since I have forgotten how to scoff. We learn more humility in prison.” “But who sent you there? The king! Who was it that promised freedom, as a return for her own vile life, and then gave forth that you were dead? Marie Antoinette, the Austrian!” “The king who buried me is dead. God has long since judged him for the crime!” “But the woman who ruled that weak, wicked man is still living.” “Let her live.” “But your wrongs belong to the people. They speak louder than the clamor of a thousand tongues against the man and woman who call themselves merciful, yet kept you a prisoner in this horrid place years and years after the original oppressor was dead.” “Hush! Speak lower, you disturb my little friend. It is always so quiet here.” Louison shook her head. “Poor man, his mind is disturbed.” “No; it is my heart which shrinks from the strife going on up yonder. They dragged me into it; _she_ did, the woman who calls herself my wife. She dragged me to her side on the cannon that day, where hordes of frantic women might whet their rage over my broken life. Had that woman been on the guillotine, they would have found me by her side; but not there—not there. France has better uses for her women.”