108 TRAVEL, ADVENTURE, AND SPORT. 



their furious cries, and execrated the orator, his 

 friends, and his party. 



At Blois, a reception equally hostile, but on differ- 

 ent principles, awaited the prisoners. The multitude 

 in some of those provincial towns had been too far 

 from the civic feasts and fetes of Paris to know 

 much more of the Revolution than that they were in 

 beggary and despair, that their industry was broken 

 up, their little trade extinguished, and their little 

 property torn away by the republican extortioners. 

 At Blois, the multitude ran together to kill the pri- 

 soners ; for, in those days, the knife was the grand 

 decider of all causes. But their cries must have 

 wrung the spirits of the miserable men, whom jus- 

 tice ought to have seized long before. 



" There they are," was the roar of the populace 

 " there they are, the miscreants who killed the King ! 

 There are the King's murderers ! What have they 

 done for us ? They have loaded us with taxes ; they 

 have eaten up our bread ; they have brought war 

 upon us ! " 



The uproar continued, until the prisoners, appa- 

 rently to save them from being torn in pieces, for 

 the guard had been already attacked, were put into 

 a small damp chapel, where all their bed was a little 

 straw on the floor, and to sleep was impossible. 



Here the wife of Barbe Marbois came to take leave 

 of him. She had travelled from her estate at Metz, 

 for this apostate was a man of fortune, to bid him 



