“‘Oh!  Oh!  Madame Baptiste!’

“And a great uproar, partly of laughter and partly of indignation, arose.  The word was repeated over and over again; people stood on tiptoe to see the unhappy woman’s face; husbands lifted their wives up in their arms, so that they might see her, and people asked: 

“‘Which is she?  The one in blue?’

“The boys crowed like cocks, and laughter was heard all over the place.

“She did not move now on her state chair, but sat just as if she had been put there for the crowd to look at.  She could not move, nor conceal herself, nor hide her face.  Her eyelids blinked quickly, as if a vivid light were shining on them, and she breathed heavily, like a horse that is going up a steep hill, so that it almost broke one’s heart to see her.  Meanwhile, however, Monsieur Hamot had seized the ruffian by the throat, and they were rolling on the ground together, amid a scene of indescribable confusion, and the ceremony was interrupted.

“An hour later, as the Hamots were returning home, the young woman, who had not uttered a word since the insult, but who was trembling as if all her nerves had been set in motion by springs, suddenly sprang over the parapet of the bridge and threw herself into the river before her husband could prevent her.  The water is very deep under the arches, and it was two hours before her body was recovered.  Of course, she was dead.”

The narrator stopped and then added: 

“It was, perhaps, the best thing she could do under the circumstances.  There are some things which cannot be wiped out, and now you understand why the clergy refused to have her taken into church.  Ah!  If it had been a religious funeral the whole town would have been present, but you can understand that her suicide added to the other affair and made families abstain from attending her funeral; and then, it is not an easy matter here to attend a funeral which is performed without religious rites.”

We passed through the cemetery gates and I waited, much moved by what I had heard, until the coffin had been lowered into the grave, before I went up to the poor fellow who was sobbing violently, to press his hand warmly.  He looked at me in surprise through his tears and then said: 

“Thank you, monsieur.”  And I was not sorry that I had followed the funeral.

THE QUESTION OF LATIN

This subject of Latin that has been dinned into our ears for some time past recalls to my mind a story—­a story of my youth.

I was finishing my studies with a teacher, in a big central town, at the Institution Robineau, celebrated through the entire province for the special attention paid there to the study of Latin.

For the past ten years, the Robineau Institute beat the imperial lycee of the town at every competitive examination, and all the colleges of the subprefecture, and these constant successes were due, they said, to an usher, a simple usher, M. Piquedent, or rather Pere Piquedent.