English was untrue, she should never have left her apartment.  She had been frightened out of her senses by some men en blouse who had made their way into her rooms and had carried off her pistol and a little Turkish dagger.  Victor’s theft of his own wages had upset her.  She had insisted upon setting out.  Hermione had got post-horses somehow:  Hermione ought never to have let her come away.

About three in the morning we reached a larger village than we had hitherto passed.  The inhabitants had been apprised of the events in the Rue Neuve des Capucines before the ministry of the Affaires Etrangeres, and the revolutionary element had increased in audacity.  A crowd of turbulent-looking working-men dressed in blouses, armed with muskets, old sabres and all kinds of miscellaneous weapons, stopped our way.  Some seized the head of the old horse, some gathered round the cart and lifted lanterns into the faces of the ladies.  The French workman is a much more athletic man than the French soldier.  I own to a sensation of deadly terror for a moment when I saw the ladies in the midst of a lawless rabble whose brawny arms were bared as if prepared for butchery of any kind.  Far off, too, a low rattle of distant musketry warned us that the tumult in Paris was renewed.

“Mourir pour la Patrie” appeared to come from every throat, and many of the crowd were the worse for liquor.  Indeed, these patriots had rendezvoused at a cabaret at the entrance of the village, and swarmed from its tables to intercept us.  The ladies, they insisted, must alight and be examined.  Mammy Chris was drawn out of the cart, looking as if her face had been rubbed in ashes:  Mrs. Leare was nervously excited, Hermione went up to her, supported her and drew her bag of diamonds out of her hand.  I took Claribel in my arms.

“Vos passeports,” they demanded.

“Here are our American passports,” said Hermione:  “we are Americans.”

“Yes, Americans, republicans!” cried Mrs. Leare:  “we fraternize with all republicans in France.”

“Aristos,” said a man between his teeth, glancing at her dress and at that of Hermione.

“What does he say?” cried Mrs. Leare, who did not catch the word.

“Hush, mother!” said Hermione.

“But what did he say?” she shrieked.  “Tell me at once:  do not keep it from me.”

Hermione replied (unwilling to use the word “aristocrat”) by an American idiom:  “He said we belonged to the Upper Ten.”

“But we don’t!  Oh, Hermie, your father belongs to a good family in Maryland, but my grandfather made shoes.  I was quite poor when he married me.  I was only sixteen.”

“What you say?” said a railroad-hand who knew a little English.  “You say you are not some aristos?”

“No, sir,” said I:  “these ladies claim to be Americans and republicans.”

“Vive la Republique!” cried the man.

“Vive la Republique!” quickly echoed Hermione.