The vehicle turned painfully, tearing itself away with regret from that superb spectacle for which Paris had been waiting four days, rolled back up the avenue, into Rue Montaigne, and down Boulevard Malesherbes, at an unwilling, crawling trot, to the Madeleine. There the crowd was greater, more compact. In the heavy mist, the brightly lighted windows of the church, the muffled strains of the funeral chants behind the black hangings, which were in such profusion that they concealed even the shape of the Greek temple, filled the whole square with reminders of the service then in progress, while the greater part of the huge procession still crowded Rue Royale as far as the bridges,--a long black line connecting the defunct statesman with the iron fence of the Corps Legislatif through which he had so often passed. Beyond the Madeleine the roadway of the boulevard was entirely empty, kept clear by two lines of soldiers, who forced the spectators back to the sidewalks, black with people; all the stores closed, and the balconies, despite the rain, overflowing with bodies leaning far forward in the direction of the church, as if to watch the passage of a herd of fat cattle, or the return of victorious troops. Paris, greedy of spectacles, makes a spectacle of everything indifferently, of civil war or of the burial of a statesman. Once more the cab must retrace its steps, make another detour, and we can fancy the ill-humor of the driver and his beasts, Parisians all three at heart, and furious at being deprived of such a fine show. Thereupon, through the silent deserted streets, all the life of Paris having betaken itself to the great artery of the boulevard, began a capricious, aimless journey, the senseless loitering of a cab hired by the hour, reaching the extreme limits of Faubourg Saint-Martin, Faubourg Saint-Denis, returning toward the centre, and always finding at the end of every circuit, every stratagem, the same obstacle lying in wait, the same crowd, some off-shoot of the black procession seen vaguely at the end of a street, defiling slowly in the rain to the sound of muffled drums, a dull heavy sound like that made by earth falling bit by bit into a hole. What torture for Felicia! It was her sin, her remorse passing through the streets of Paris in all that solemn pomp, that funereal magnificence, that public mourning reflected even in the clouds; and the proud girl rebelled against the affront that circumstances put upon her, fled from it to the depths of the carriage, where she remained with closed eyes, overwhelmed, while old Crenmitz, believing that it was her grief which so affected her nerves, strove to comfort her, wept herself over their separation, and withdrawing into the other corner, left the cab-window in full possession of the great Algerian _slougui_, his delicate nostrils sniffing the air and his forepaws resting despotically on the sill with heraldic rigidity.