Children and war -- Juvenile fiction; France -- History -- Revolution, 1789-1799 -- Juvenile fiction
Marie Josephine thought of all that Dian had said, a little later, as
she sat on a secluded bench in the great entrance hall of Great-aunt
Hortense’s house. All about her were emblems of the revolution. She
would have laughed out loud at the thought of Great-aunt Hortense’s
horror if she had not been too excited and tremulous to laugh at
anything. A tri-color banner was draped over the entrance to the grand
salon. At the carved oak table in the center of the hall sat three men
wearing red caps, and all down the dusky corridors other red caps bobbed
up and down as citizens walked to and fro debating and wrangling. From
an anteroom, a cold, gilded apartment, came a jangle of voices. A
meeting of one of the sections was taking place there. All through the
city were clubs or sections, each composed of men with different ideas
from the others, no two ever agreeing on anything except to advocate
bloodshed and to show no mercy.
Marie had put her tray with its jug of licorice water and its jangling
cups on the floor beside her. Vivi had left it for her at the stand of a
nut seller near the Marquise du Ganne’s house. All sorts of booths and
stands had sprung up overnight in the once fashionable parts of Paris.
Dian would be waiting for Madame Saint Frère, in her disguise as Henri’s
sister, in the Place de la Bastille. Henri had already been gone some
hours with his regiment. Marie Josephine was to seize her opportunity to
slide through the shadowy halls, up the back stairs to the room at the
end of the hall. Her heart beat so fast that it seemed as though some
one must hear it. She saw that it was not going to be an easy thing to
slip away, and she made up her mind that she must not, under any
circumstance, let any chance go by. Some men came up to her and demanded
a drink. She stooped over for her tray and stood up.
She did not feel as though it were herself at all who poured the
sickish-looking, grey mixture into the tin cups and received in exchange
coins which she put in the pocket of her torn skirt. She was careful not
to speak any more than she could help, for fear that her voice would
betray her. She could look like Vivi, and instinct seemed to tell her
how to be like her, but she was afraid of her voice.
As she walked about among the crowd, through the old familiar halls,
selling her wares, she remembered what Dian had said: “Have no fear.
Fear is nothing and it cannot talk to you or keep you from doing what is
right. It has no power!” She remembered something else that he had said:
“You are so changed. It will be easy, indeed, for your mother not to
think of you at all, except as a part of her rescue. Shake your hair
well over your face and do not look directly at her more than you can
help. Remember she thinks that you are near Calais!”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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