There had been silence for a few minutes in the little cell. The
soldiery outside, inured to their hideous duty, thought no doubt
that the time had come for them to interfere. The iron bar was
raised and thrown back with a loud crash, the butt-ends of muskets
were grounded against the floor, and two soldiers made noisy
irruption into the cell.
"Hola, citizen! Wake up," shouted one of the men; "you have not
told us yet what you have done with Capet!"
Marguerite uttered a cry of horror. Instinctively her arms were
interposed between the unconscious man and these inhuman
creatures, with a beautiful gesture of protecting motherhood.
"He has fainted," she said, her voice quivering with indignation.
"My God! are you devils that you have not one spark of manhood in
you?"
The men shrugged their shoulders, and both laughed brutally. They
had seen worse sights than these, since they served a Republic
that ruled by bloodshed and by terror. They were own brothers in
callousness and cruelty to those men who on this self-same spot a
few months ago had watched the daily agony of a martyred Queen, or
to those who had rushed into the Abbaye prison on that awful day
in September, and at a word from their infamous leaders had put
eighty defenceless prisoners--men, women, and children--to the
sword.
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