"Monseigneur, hear me! Monseigneur, hear my petition! My husband
died of want; so many die of want; so many more will die of want."
"Again, well? Can I feed them?"
"Monseigneur, the good God knows; but I don't ask it. My petition is,
that a morsel of stone or wood, with my husband's name, may be placed
over him to show where he lies. Otherwise, the place will be quickly
forgotten, it will never be found when I am dead of the same malady,
I shall be laid under some other heap of poor grass. Monseigneur,
they are so many, they increase so fast, there is so much want.
Monseigneur! Monseigneur!"
The valet had put her away from the door, the carriage had broken
into a brisk trot, the postilions had quickened the pace, she was
left far behind, and Monseigneur, again escorted by the Furies, was
rapidly diminishing the league or two of distance that remained
between him and his chateau.
The sweet scents of the summer night rose all around him, and rose,
as the rain falls, impartially, on the dusty, ragged, and toil-worn
group at the fountain not far away; to whom the mender of roads, with
the aid of the blue cap without which he was nothing, still enlarged
upon his man like a spectre, as long as they could bear it.
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