The Flight.
La Valliere followed the patrol as it left the courtyard. The patrol bent its steps
towards the right, by the Rue St. Honore, and mechanically La Valliere turned to
the left. Her resolution was taken - her determination fixed; she wished to betake
herself to the convent of the Carmelites at Chaillot, the superior of which enjoyed
a reputation for severity which made the worldly-minded people of the court
tremble. La Valliere had never seen Paris, she had never gone out on foot, and
so would have been unable to find her way even had she been in a calmer frame
of mind than was then the case; and this may explain why she ascended, instead
of descending, the Rue St. Honore. Her only thought was to get away from the
Palais Royal, and this she was doing; she had heard it said that Chaillot looked
out upon the Seine, and she accordingly directed her steps towards the Seine.
She took the Rue de Coq, and not being able to cross the Louvre, bore towards
the church of Saint Germain l'Auxerrois, proceeding along the site of the
colonnade which was subsequently built there by Perrault. In a very short time
she reached the quays. Her steps were rapid and agitated; she scarcely felt the
weakness which reminded her of having sprained her foot when very young, and
which obliged her to limp slightly. At any other hour in the day her countenance
would have awakened the suspicions of the least clear- sighted, attracted the
attention of the most indifferent. But at half- past two in the morning, the streets
of Paris are almost, if not quite, deserted, and scarcely is any one to be seen but
the hard-working artisan on his way to earn his daily bread or the roistering idlers
of the streets, who are returning to their homes after a night of riot and
debauchery; for the former the day was beginning, and for the latter it was just
closing. La Valliere was afraid of both faces, in which her ignorance of Parisian
types did not permit her to distinguish the type of probity from that of dishonesty.
The appearance of misery alarmed her, and all she met seemed either vile or
miserable. Her dress, which was the same she had worn during the previous
evening, was elegant even in its careless disorder; for it was the one in which
she had presented herself to the queen-mother; and, moreover, when she drew
aside the mantle which covered her face, in order to enable her to see the way
she was going, her pallor and her beautiful eyes spoke an unknown language to
the men she met, and, unconsciously, the poor fugitive seemed to invite the
brutal remarks of the one class, or to appeal to the compassion of the other. La
Valliere still walked on in the same way, breathless and hurried, until she
reached the top of the Place de Greve. She stopped from time to time, placed
her hand upon her heart, leaned against a wall until she could breathe freely
again, and then continued on her course more rapidly than before. On reaching
the Place de Greve La Valliere suddenly came upon a group of three drunken
men, reeling and staggering along, who were just leaving a boat which they had
made fast to the quay; the boat was freighted with wines, and it was apparent
that they had done ample justice to the merchandise. They were celebrating their
convivial exploits in three different keys, when suddenly, as they reached the end
