once, was tearing from house to house, rousing the women.

The men were terrible, in the bloody-minded anger with which

they looked from windows, caught up what arms they had, and

came pouring down into the streets; but, the women were a sight

to chill the boldest. From such household occupations as their

bare poverty yielded, from their children, from their aged and

their sick crouching on the bare ground famished and naked, they

ran out with streaming hair, urging one another, and themselves,

to madness with the wildest cries and actions. Villain Foulon

taken, my sister! Old Foulon taken, my mother! Miscreant Foulon

taken, my daughter! Then, a score of others ran into the midst of

these, beating their breasts, tearing their hair, and screaming,

Foulon alive! Foulon who told the starving people they might eat

grass! Foulon who told my old father that he might eat grass,

when I had no bread to give him! Foulon who told my baby it

Charles Dickens ElecBook Classics

might suck grass, when these breasts were dry with want! O

mother of God, this Foulon! O Heaven, our suffering! Hear me, my

dead baby and my withered father: I swear on my knees, on these

stones to avenge you on Foulon! Husbands, and brothers, and

young men, Give us the blood of Foulon, Give us the head of

Foulon, Give us the heart of Foulon, Give us the body and soul of

Foulon, Rend Foulon to pieces, and dig him into the ground, that

grass may grow from him! With these cries, numbers of the

women, lashed into blind frenzy, whirled about, striking and

tearing at their own friends until they dropped into a passionate

swoon, and were only saved by the men belonging to them from

being trampled under foot.

Nevertheless, not a moment was lost; not a moment! This

Foulon was at the Hotel de Ville, and might be loosed. Never, if

Saint Antoine knew his own sufferings, insults, and wrongs!

Armed men and women flocked out of the Quarter so fast, and

drew even these last dregs after them with such a force of suction,

that within a quarter of an hour there was not a human creature in

Saint Antoine’s bosom but a few old crones and the wailing

children.

No. They were all by that time choking the Hall of Examination

where this old man, ugly and wicked, was, and overflowing into

the adjacent open space and streets. The Defarges, husband and

wife, The Vengeance, and Jacques Three, were in the first press,

and at no great distance from him in the Hall.

“See!” cried madame, pointing with her knife. “See the old

villain bound with ropes. That was well done to tie a bunch of

grass upon his back. Ha, ha! That was well done. Let him eat it

now!” Madame put her knife under her arm, and clapped her

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hands as at a play.

The people immediately behind Madame Defarge, explaining

the cause of her satisfaction to those behind them, and those again

explaining to others, and those to others, the neighbouring streets