Russia in 1839 -Empire of the Czar: A Journey Through Eternal Russia

SCENE AT MARAT'S TOMB.31

By a confusion of ideas, which strikingly exhibits the disorder into which minds were plunged at this epoch, the women, after finisliing their prayers, rose, paying a deep reverence to their new saint, and making the sign of the cross.

Nanette was so indignant at this exhibition, that, forgetting I was in her arms, she began to load these new devotees with abuse, and from words soon came to blows. During the struggle she continued faith-fully to hold me to her bosom, the fear of my suffering in the contest being her chief care. At length she fell, and the ery of " to the lantern with the aristocrat " resounded from all sides. A woman snatched me from her arms, and she was being dragged along by the hair of her head, when a man, who appeared among the most furious of the crowd, pressed near to her, and contrived to hint in her ear that she should counterfeit insanity, and that he would take care of her child. Nanette began immediately to sing and make many strange grimaces; whereupon her friendly adviser called out "she is mad."—"She is mad; she is mad; let her go," was re-echoed by other voices. Availing herself of this means of escape, she retreated, singing and dancing, towards the Pont Royal, and in the Rue du Вас received me again from the hands of her deliverer.

This lesson served to render Nanette (chiefly through fear for me) more circumspect, but her imprudenee became a source of constant alarm to my mother.

The latter, in her prison, derived some consolation from the society of several distinguished female fellow prisoners, who evinced for her the sincerest sympathy. с 4