some parts of the country this took the form of a meaningless upheaval, just to test the new-found liberty. Chateaux of unpopular proprietors were sacked and burnt. The dwelling of the de Vaux family was somewhat injured, and its inmates alarmed for their property; but, at a critical moment, Jean Boulot appeared upon the scene and scornfully rated the rioters for their cowardice. "Shame!" he cried, "ye are indeed worthy of liberty if your first use of it is to slay or insult old men and women! Next, I suppose, you will pay us a visit, and repay with brand and pitchfork the debt you all owe to the marquise?" The crowd desisted from the work of destruction and shamefacedly dispersed. No, no--they grumbled. Jean Boulot was a fine fellow, to whose harangues they all liked to listen, but his tongue sometimes was sharp, his sayings bitter. Attack Lorge? Never. What! the home of the white chatelaine, whose hands were ever stretched forth to do good, at sight of whose beautiful sad face everyone sighed with pity?

People are naturally so perverse that they are ever apt to plume themselves upon results that are due to others. The abbé and Mademoiselle Brunelle, and with them the Marquis de Gange, were quite assured that the impunity from attack enjoyed by Lorge was due to the strength of its walls and the ingenuity of their tactics. Jean's speech at Montbazon was not reported to them--he was not one to boast of his own deeds, and they were too infatuated to realize that the pale, weak, fragile woman, whose reserve and resignation daily exasperated Aglaé, was the real author of their safety.

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER XIII.

 DOMESTIC SURGERY.

 

These were exciting times--no doubt of it--even to humdrum provincials, remote from the madding crowd. The web on the muse's loom grew so rapidly that the eye could not follow the shuttle. Were the dogs of war to be unloosed upon the land? Was fair France to be invaded and torn by the enemy from without as well as by one within? On the 6th of July the Emperor of Austria appealed to the sovereigns to unite for the delivery of Louis. On the 11th a formal demand was made in the Constituant Assembly for his 

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