" And I observe the depth of the groan is nearly
in proportion to the quality of the person she commiserates. Thus, a
groan for a Comte, a Marquise, or a Priest, is much more audible than one
for a simple gentlewoman or a merchant; and the arrival of a Bishop
(especially if not one of the constitutional clergy) is announced in a
more sorrowful key than either.
While I was walking in the yard this morning, I was accosted by a
female whom I immediately recollected to be Victoire, a very pretty
_couturiere,_ [Sempstress.] who used to work for me when I was at
Panthemont, and who made your last holland shirts. I was not a little
surprized to see her in such a situation, and took her aside to enquire
her history. I found that her mother was dead, and that her brother
having set up a little shop at St. Omer, had engaged her to go and live
with him. Being under five-and-twenty, the last requisition obliged him
to depart for the army, and leave her to carry on the business alone.
Three weeks after, she was arrested at midnight, put into a cart, and
brought hither. She had no time to take any precautions, and their
little commerce, which was in haberdashery, as well as some work she had
in hand, is abandoned to the mercy of the people that arrested her. She
has reason to suppose that her crime consists in not having frequented
the constitutional mass; and that her accuser is a member of one of the
town committees, who, since her brother's absence, has persecuted her
with dishonourable proposals, and, having been repulsed, has taken this
method of revenging himself.
Pages:
319
320
321
322
323
324
325
326
327
328
329
330
331
332
333
334
335
336
337
338
339
340
341
342
343