“She will consent; for heart and soul, she is with us.” “With the people, you mean. Yes, yes, and the little one, what of her?” “She is good as an angel.” “And we will keep her so. Our work, Monsieur Jacques, is not for children. The clubs are no places for girls. This one shall sell flowers, and charm us with her innocence. We need something sweet and young to keep us human in these strange times. Are you going? Well, well, adieu.” “Ah, dame, you are kind as an angel. I cannot thank you enough,” said Jacques, bending before the market woman as if she had been an empress. The dame blushed like a girl, and, gathering up her flowers, took her way to the market in quick haste, ashamed of the pleasure this adroit flattery gave her. CHAPTER XII. EARLY IN THE MORNING. All night long, Madame Gosner lay awake, thinking of what she had suffered, and of what she had heard. She was a woman of powerful mind and corresponding physique; all her faculties were in vigorous harmony. In peaceful times she might have been a court dame, leading a throng of triflers into something like intelligent pleasures—for that woman could never have contented herself with mediocrity in anything. As it was, one great object had occupied her for years. The wrongs of a husband, whom she had loved with all the force and tenderness of a great soul, occupied every idea of her life. Even when she believed him dead, this great love clung around him as a memory, which threw her whole being into mourning. The scrap of paper, which seemed to have come to her by a miracle, changed all this in a moment. Her husband lived. There was something for her to do. The sleeping energies of her nature awoke with a rebound. She determined to save her husband, or perish in the attempt. Save her husband, rescue him from the Bastille, with walls twenty feet thick between him and daylight; with green mould forming itself out of the stagnant waters, which oozed through the very stones, and clung, like an unwholesome sweat, to the sides of his dungeon. Was it in the power of woman to free this unhappy man from the living grave that inclosed him? Against all the despairing replies, which came back to her from these questions, the indomitable spirit of the woman answered, “I will free him,” and her action corresponded with her words. She took her only child, gathered up the fragments of property left to them, and came into France, her own native country, resolved on obtaining freedom for her husband. We have seen how she succeeded. Her money was all exhausted. She had used it unsparingly, but with no avail up to this time—nothing that she had done could win her even access to the king. Now she was suffering for food; want had sapped the foundations of her strength, and the energies of her soul were giving out.