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“Let me speak, madame,” he said. “We have not a moment to lose. Yes, we will present ourselves at the mayoralty, and there I will espouse you, not as Claudine Leroy, but as Alix de Morainville. Once my wife you have nothing to fear. Having become one of the people, the people will protect you. After the ceremony, madame, I will hand you the certificate of our marriage, and you will tear it up the moment we shall have touched the soil of England. Keep it precious till then; it is your only safeguard. Nothing prevents me from going to England to find employment, and necessarily my wife will go with me. Are you ready, madame?”

For my only response I put my hand in his; I was too deeply moved to speak. Mother Catharine threw both her arms about her son’s neck and cried, “My noble child!” and we issued from the cottage guarded by Guillaume and his three other sons, armed to the teeth.

When the mayor heard the names and surnames of the wedding pair he turned to Joseph, saying:

“You are not lowering yourself, my boy.”

At the door of the mayoralty we found ourselves face to face with an immense crowd. I trembled violently and pressed against Joseph. He, never losing his presence of mind [sans perdre la carte], turned, saying:

“Allow me, my friends, to present to you my wife. The Viscomtesse de Morainville no longer exists; hurrah for the Citoyenne Carpentier.” And the hurrahs and cries of triumph were enough to deafen one. Those who the moment before were ready to tear me into pieces now wanted to carry me in triumph. Arrived at the house, Joseph handed me our act of marriage.

“Keep it, madame,” said he; “you can destroy it on your arrival in England.”

At length one day, three weeks after our marriage, Joseph came to tell me that he had secured passage on a vessel, and that we must sail together under the name of Citoyen and Citoyenne Carpentier. I was truly sorry to leave my adopted parents and foster-brother, yet at the bottom of my heart I was rejoiced that I was going to find my mother.

But alas! when I arrived in London, at the address that she had given me, I found there only her old friend the Chevalier d’Ivoy, who told me that my mother was dead, and that what was left of her money, with her jewels and chests, was deposited in the Bank of England. I was more dead than alive; all these things paralyzed me. But my good Joseph took upon himself to do everything for me. He went and drew what had been deposited in the bank. Indeed of money there remained but twelve thousand francs; but there were plate, jewels, pictures, and many vanities in the form of gowns and every sort of attire.

Joseph rented a little house in a suburb of London, engaged an old Frenchwoman to attend me, and he, after all my husband, made himself my servant, my gardener, my factotum. He ate in the kitchen with the maid, waited upon me at table, and slept in the garret on a pallet.

“Am I not very wicked?” said I to myself every day, especially when I saw his pallor and profound sadness. They had taught me in the convent that the ties of marriage were a sacred thing and that one could not break them, no matter how they might have been made; and when my patrician pride revolted at the thought of this union with the son of my nurse

my heart pleaded
and pleaded
hard the cause
of poor J
Joseph. His        (Evidently torn before Alix


care, his          wrote on it, as no words
presence, became      are wanting in the text.)
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