g4S -^n Account of (lie Inundation of 



money in the cow-house, how will my mother be able to find 

 it ?" " And you, my boy, where have you hid yours ?" " I 

 have only a crown which my sister has." Two workmen dis- 

 puting were beginning to fight ; let them alone, said a third, 

 *' if one of them be killed he will serve us for food," this ended 

 the quarrel. Some of them ate candles which they had hid, 

 and others drank their urine in preference to the extremely nau- 

 seous water. Bertrand, Labeye, and Clavir, whose courage 

 prompted them willingly to follow the fate of their leader, fre- 

 quently said, " Dear Goffin, we must love a man with whom 

 we had rather see death than abandon him." Another used this 

 reproach, " If you had not called me, perhaps I might have 

 got up in ihe fourth corf." In this manner, this most generous of 

 men was doubly afflicted. Still such is the versatility of the 

 imagination that a scene quite comic succeeded to the most 

 hideous views of death. One of the men complained, on enter- 

 ing the drift for the first time, that the heat was insupportable, 

 and that he had no hole in his nose, at which his companions 

 burst into laughter ; he was therefore dismissed, and his work 

 dispensed with. This absence of mind, however, this forgetful- 

 ness of misfortune, was of short duration. Those especially who 

 could not work, found the most urgent want of subsistence. A 

 little time back, fearing to be drowned, they only went to the 

 edge of the water to judge of its height, now deprived of light 

 they crept there, in hope of finding the body of one of their 

 companions to serve as food at the last extremity. But the on- 

 ly aliment they could find was the infected water, which they 

 brought to the workmen in their hats (callotes) and in their 

 candle box. These hats are bad, and have very small brims 

 in which they fix the candle with clay. The perspiring workmen 

 promised Goffin only to moisten their lips in the water, but they 

 drank the last drop, without quenching their thirst. " We 

 have drunk," said they, " the blood of our friends who perished 

 under their burdens," others, losing their senses, asked their way 

 home. They complained they were left to perish without light 

 or food. Among other proofs of Insanity, they asked for sallad 

 and cabbage, and rose into violent passions against Goffin, who 

 unceasingly endeavoured to calm them with the assurance that 

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