"Go, children, and kneel down, and beg of these good gentlemen not to take away your poor father, our only support," said Madeleine, anxious by a last effort to touch the hearts of the bailiffs. But, spite of their mother's orders, the terrified children remained weeping on their miserable mattress. At the unusual noise which prevailed, added to the aspect of two strange men in the room, the poor idiot turned herself towards the wall, as though striving to hide from them, uttering all the time the most discordant cries and moans. Morel, meanwhile, appeared unconscious of all that was going on; this last stroke of fate had been so frightful and unexpected, and the consequences of his arrest were so dreadful, that his mind seemed almost unequal to understanding its reality. Worn out by all manner of privations, and exhausted by over-toil, his strength utterly forsook him, and he remained seated on his stool, pale and haggard, and as though incapable of speech or motion, his head drooping on his breast, and his arms hanging listlessly by his side. "Deuce take me," cried Malicorne, "if that old patterer is not going fast asleep! Why, I say, my chap, you seem to think nothing of keeping gen'l'men like us waiting; just remember, will you, our time is precious! You know this is not exactly a party of pleasure, so march, or I shall be obliged to make you." Suiting the action to the word, the man grasped the artisan by the shoulder, and shook him roughly; which so alarmed the children, that, unable to restrain their terror, the three little boys emerged from their _paillasse_, and, half naked as they were, came in an agony of tears to throw themselves at the feet of the bailiffs, holding up their clasped hands, and crying, in tones of touching earnestness: "Pray, pray don't hurt our dear father!" At the sight of these poor, shivering, half-clad infants, weeping with affright, and trembling with cold, Bourdin, spite of his natural callousness and long acquaintance with scenes of this sort, could not avoid a feeling almost resembling compassion from stealing over him, while his pitiless companion, brutally disengaging himself from the grasp of the small, weak creatures who were clinging to him, exclaimed: "Hands off, you young ragamuffins! A devilish fine trade ours would be, if we were to allow ourselves to be mauled about by a set of beggars' brats like you!" As though the scene were not sufficiently distressing, a fearful addition was made to its horrors. The eldest of the little girls, who had remained in the _paillasse_ with her sick sister, suddenly exclaimed: "Mother! mother! I don't know what's the matter with Adèle! She is so cold, and her eyes are fixed on my face, and yet she does not breathe." The poor little child, whose consumptive appearance we have before noticed, had expired gently, and without a sigh, her looks fixed earnestly on the sister she so tenderly loved.