1692.] THE HEROINE OF VERCHERES. 307 



darkness disappeared, our anxieties seemed to dis- 

 appear with it. Everybody took courage except 

 Mademoiselle Marguerite, wife of the Sieur Fon- 

 taine, who being extremely timid, as all Parisian 

 women are, asked her husband to carry her to an^- 

 other fort. . . He said, e I will never abandon this fort 

 while Mademoiselle Madelon [Madeleine) is here.' 

 I answered him that I would never abandon it ; that 

 I would rather die than give it up to the enemy ; and 

 that it was of the greatest importance that they 

 should never get possession of any French fort, be- 

 cause, if they got one, they would think they could 

 get others, and would grow more bold and pre- 

 sumptuous than ever. I may say with truth that 

 I did not eat or sleep for twice twenty-four hours. 

 I did not go once into my father's house, but kept 

 always on the bastion, or went to the blockhouse to 

 see how the people there were behaving. I always 

 kept a cheerful and smiling face, and encouraged 

 my little company with the hope of speedy succor. 

 " We were a week in constant alarm, with the 

 enemy always about us. At last Monsieur cle la 

 Monnerie, a lieutenant sent by Monsieur de Cal- 

 lieres, arrived in the night with forty men. As he 

 did not know whether the fort was taken or not, 

 he approached as silently as possible. One of our 

 sentinels, hearing a slight sound, cried, c Qui vive ? " 

 I was at the time dozing, with my head on a table 

 and my gun lying across my arms. The sentinel 

 told me that he heard a voice from the river. I 

 went up at once to the bastion to see whether it 

 was Indians or Frenchmen. I asked, ' Who are 



