Agnès, my daughter-in-law, is a good woman. I have not a word to say
against her; and if there are moments when my heart rebels, when I ask
myself why she should have her eyes opened and not I, the good God knows
that I do not complain against His will--it is in His hand to do as He
pleases. And if I receive no privileges, yet have I the privilege which
is best, which is, as M. le Curé justly observes, the highest of all--
that of doing my duty. In this I thank the good Lord our Seigneur that
my Martin has never needed to be ashamed of his mother.

I will also admit that when it was first made apparent to me--not by the
sounds of voices which the others heard, but by the use of my reason
which I humbly believe is also a gift of God--that the way in which I
could best serve both those of the city and my son Martin, who is over
them, was to lead the way with the children and all the helpless to La
Clairière, thus relieving the watchers, there was for a time a great
struggle in my bosom. What were they all to me, that I should desert my
Martin, my only son, the child of my old age; he who is as his father,
as dear, and yet more dear, because he is his father's son? 'What! (I
said in my heart) abandon thee, my child? nay, rather abandon life and
every consolation; for what is life to me but thee?' But while my heart
swelled with this cry, suddenly it became apparent to me how many there
were holding up their hands helplessly to him, clinging to him so that
he could not move. To whom else could they turn? He was the one among
all who preserved his courage, who neither feared nor failed. When those
voices rang out from the walls--which some understood, but which I did
not understand, and many more with me--though my heart was wrung with
straining my ears to listen if there was not a voice for me too, yet at
the same time this thought was working in my heart. There was a poor
woman close to me with little children clinging to her; neither did she
know what those voices said. Her eyes turned from Semur, all lost in the