the edge of the platform, opposite the burning castle and in the full light of the fire, a haggard, pitiful figure, a woman bending over the ravine.
This figure was no longer Michelle Fléchard; it was Medusa. The wretched are terrible. The peasant woman was transformed into one of the Eumenides. This country woman, vulgar, ignorant, unreasoning, had suddenly asumed the epic proportions of despair. Great sorrows have a gigantic power of enlarging the soul; this mother represented maternity; everything which sums up humanity is superhuman; she rose then, on the edge of this ravine, before this conflagration, before this crime, like a power from the grave; her cry was like that of a wild beast, and her gestures like those of a goddess; her face, from which proceeded imprecations, seemed like a masque of flame. Nothing could be more sovereign than the lightning of her eyes bathed in tears; her eyes flashed lightning on the fire.
The marquis listened. This fell on his ear; he heard something strangely inarticulate and heartrending, more like sobs than words.
"Ah! my God! my children! those are my children! help! fire! fire! fire! but you are bandits! is there no one there? but my children will be burned! Ah! how terrible! Georgette! my children! Gros-Alain, René-Jean! but what does it mean? who put my children there? they are asleep. I am mad! it is impossible! Help!"
Meanwhile, there was a great confusion in la Tourgue and on the plateau. The whole camp ran around the fire, which had just burst out. The besiegers, after being concerned with the firing, were now concerned with the fire. Gauvain, Cimourdain, Guéchamp, gave orders. What was to be done? there were but a few buckets of water to be drawn from the shallow brook in the ravine. Their distress increased. The whole edge of the plateau was covered with frightened faces looking on.
It was a frightful sight.
They looked on, and could do nothing.
The flames, by means of the ivy which had taken fire, had reached the upper story. There it had found the granary full of straw and had seized upon it. The whole granary was now burning.
