“This very day I would have knelt to the king. After so many years of waiting, I had made up my mind to speak to him, or be trampled under the feet of his horses; but though I fell upon the earth, it was of no avail, they would not allow me to reach him. Oh! those nobles are hard, hard as the rock. He did not look that way; so many persons surrounded him that I could no more get through them, or reach him, than I could have stopped an army. “The king was on his way to Meudon, to hunt, they told me, and no one must impede the way. So they went by, horses and men, spattering me with mud. Ah! how grand they were, how their clothes shone and glittered! How rosy and plump they looked, while I was famishing, and _he_ in the depths of the Bastille. Ah, Monsieur Jacques! there is a great gulf between the good king and his people. Who will fill it up?” “Wait,” said Jacques—“wait and work.” “Ah! but mamma has already worked so hard,” said Marguerite, kissing her mother with pathetic tenderness. “It is my turn now. I will find something to do, if it is only to open and shut the mold in which Monsieur Jacques runs his bullets.” “But can you do nothing better than that, little one?” “Oh, many things!” answered the girl. “I can embroider beautifully, and make the loveliest things—but who will employ me? I have tried, oh! so hard, to get work.” “No doubt, no doubt; but then work is the thing which no one can get in Paris. Even the earth refuses to do her part, and lets the seed dry up in her bosom, that is why France is so restless. But madame has just made a revelation—she spoke of some one in the Bastille.” “She spoke of my father,” said Marguerite, in a sad, low voice. “And is he in that awful place?” “Sit down, monsieur, and I will tell you,” said the elder lady, “for you are almost the only friend we have, and I must confide in some one.” CHAPTER VII. THE PRISONER OF THE BASTILLE. Jacques sat down, and Mrs. Gosner went on with her narrative. “We have not always been so poor as this—far from it. My husband was the lateral descendant from a noble house; my own blood is not altogether plebeian.” Jacques nodded his head, and muttered, “I thought so.” Madame went on, “My husband was a born subject of the empress. He was a learned man—nay, he had higher powers than mere learning can give. In some things he was great.” Monsieur Jacques started up suddenly, and struck a table near him with his clenched hand. Some idea had evidently excited him. “Your name is Gosner—Dr. Gosner. I understand—I understand; but go on.”