“‘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.
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.
