Then he caught the doctor by the coat, entreating him to remain there, assuring him that he was mistaken, that she was not dead, and that he could save her if he only would.  Pascal resisted gently, saying, in his kindly voice:  “I can do nothing for her, others are waiting for me.  Let go, my poor child; she is quite dead.”

At last Silvere released his hold and again fell back.  Dead!  Dead!  Still that word, which rang like a knell in his dazed brain!  When he was alone he crept up close to the corpse.  Miette still seemed to be looking at him.  He threw himself upon her, laid his head upon her bosom, and watered it with his tears.  He was beside himself with grief.  He pressed his lips wildly to her, and breathed out all his passion, all his soul, in one long kiss, as though in the hope that it might bring her to life again.  But the girl was turning cold in spite of his caresses.  He felt her lifeless and nerveless beneath his touch.  Then he was seized with terror, and with haggard face and listless hanging arms he remained crouching in a state of stupor, and repeating:  “She is dead, yet she is looking at me; she does not close her eyes, she sees me still.”

This fancy was very sweet to him.  He remained there perfectly still, exchanging a long look with Miette, in whose glance, deepened by death, he still seemed to read the girl’s lament for her sad fate.

In the meantime, the cavalry were still sabring the fugitives over the Nores plain; the cries of the wounded and the galloping of the horses became more distant, softening like music wafted from afar through the clear air.  Silvere was no longer conscious of the fighting.  He did not even see his cousin, who mounted the slope again and crossed the promenade.  Pascal, as he passed along, picked up Macquart’s carbine which Silvere had thrown down; he knew it, as he had seen it hanging over aunt Dide’s chimney-piece, and he thought he might as well save it from the hands of the victors.  He had scarcely entered the Hotel de la Mule-Blanche, whither a large number of the wounded had been taken, when a band of insurgents, chased by the soldiers like a herd of cattle, once more rushed into the esplanade.  The man with the sabre had fled; it was the last contingents from the country who were being exterminated.  There was a terrible massacre.  In vain did Colonel Masson and the prefect, Monsieur de Bleriot, overcome by pity, order a retreat.  The infuriated soldiers continued firing upon the mass, and pinning isolated fugitives to the walls with their bayonets.  When they had no more enemies before them, they riddled the facade of the Mule-Blanche with bullets.  The shutters flew into splinters; one window which had been left half-open was torn out, and there was a loud rattle of broken glass.  Pitiful voices were crying out from within; “The prisoners!  The prisoners!” But the troops did not hear; they continued firing.  All at once Commander Sicardot, growing exasperated, appeared at the door, waved his arms, and endeavoured to speak.  Monsieur Peirotte, the receiver of taxes, with his slim figure and scared face, stood by his side.  However, another volley was fired, and Monsieur Peirotte fell face foremost, with a heavy thud, to the ground.