"No, no," I replied, "but I have seen a frightful thing." And I commenced to cry as I told him of the affair. He walked up and down with his hands behind his back, stopping from time to time to listen to me, while his lips contracted and his eyes sparkled. "Joseph," said he, "these men provoked them?" "No, Mr. Goulden." "It is impossible, they must have invited it. The devil! we are not savages! The rascals must have had some other reason than the cockades for attacking them!" He could not believe me, and it was only after telling him all the details twice over that he said at last: "Well! since you saw it with your own eyes I must believe you. But it is a greater misfortune than you think, Joseph. If this goes on, if they do not put a strong check on these good-for-nothings, if the Pinacles are to have the upper hand, honest people will open their eyes." He said no more, for the procession was finished and Aunt Gredel and Catherine had come. We dined together, aunt was happy and Catherine too, but even the pleasure it gave me to see them, could not make me forget what I had witnessed, and Mr. Goulden was very grave too. At night, I went with them to the "Roulette," and then I embraced them and bade them good-night. It might have been eight o'clock, and I went home immediately. Mr. Goulden had gone to the "Homme Sauvage" brewery, as was his habit on Sunday, to read the gazette, and I went to bed. He came in about ten, and seeing my candle burning on the table, he pushed open the door and said: "It seems that they are having processions everywhere. You see nothing else in the gazette." And he added that twenty thousand prisoners had returned, and that it was a happy thing for the country. V The next morning all the clocks in the village were to be wound up, and as Mr. Goulden was growing old he had intrusted that to me, and I went out very early. The wind had blown the leaves in heaps against the walls during the night, and the people were coming to take their torches and vases of flowers from the altars. All this made me sad, and I thought, "Now that they have performed their service for the dead, I hope they are satisfied. If the permit would come, it would be all very well, but if these people think they are going to amuse us with psalms they are mistaken. In the time of the Emperor we had to go to Russia and Spain it is true, but the ministers did not leave the young people to pine away. I would like to know what peace is for if it is not to get married!" I denounced Louis XVIII., the Comte d'Artois, the _emigres_, and everybody else, and declared that the nobles mocked the people. On going home I found that Mr. Goulden had set the table, and while we were eating breakfast, I told him what I thought. He listened to my complaint and laughed, saying, "Take care, Joseph, take care; you seem to me as if you were becoming a Jacobin."