them all, in this my cell in the Bastille, near the
close of the tenth year of my captivity, as I saw
them all that night.

"On some hay on the ground, with a cushion
thrown under his head, lay a handsome peasant
boy—a boy of not more than seventeen at the
most. He lay on his back, with his teeth set,
his right hand clenched on his breast, and his
glaring eyes looking straight upward. I could
not see where his wound was, as I kneeled on
one knee over him; but, I could see that he was
dying of a wound from a sharp point.

"'I am a doctor, my poor fellow,' said I.
'Let me examine it.'

"'I do not want it examined,' he answered;
'let it be.'

"It was under his hand, and I soothed him
to let me move his hand away. It was a sword-
thrust, received from twenty to twenty-four hours
before, but no skill could have saved him if it
had been looked to without delay. He was
then dying fast. As I turned my eyes to the
elder brother, I saw him looking down at this
handsome boy whose life was ebbing out, as
if he were a wounded bird, or hare, or rabbit;
not at all as if he were a fellow-creature.

"'How has this been done, monsieur?'
said I.

"'A crazed young common dog! A serf!
Forced my brother to draw upon him, and has
fallen by my brother's sword—like a gentleman.'

'"There was no touch of pity, sorrow, or
kindred humanity, in this answer. The speaker
seemed to acknowledge that it was inconvenient
to have that different order of creature dying
there, and that it would have been better if he
had died in the usual obscure routine of his
vermin kind. He was quite incapable of any
compassionate feeling about the boy, or about
his fate.

"The boy's eyes had slowly moved to him
as he had spoken, and they now slowly moved
to me.

"'Doctor, they are very proud, these Nobles;
but we common dogs are proud too, sometimes.
They plunder us, outrage us, beat us, kill us;
but we have a little pride left, sometimes.
She——have you seen her, Doctor?'

"The shrieks and the cries were audible there,
though subdued by the distance. He referred
to them, as if she were lying in our presence.

"I said, 'I have seen her.'

"'She is my sister, Doctor. They have had
their shameful rights, these Nobles, in the
modesty and virtue of our sisters, many years,
but we have had good girls among us. I know
it, and have heard my father say so. She was a
good girl. She was betrothed to a good young
man, too: a tenant of his. We were all tenants
of his—that man's who stands there. The other
is his brother, the worst of a bad race.'

"It was with the greatest difficulty that the
boy gathered bodily force to speak; but, his
spirit spoke with a dreadful emphasis.

"'We were so robbed by that man who stands
there, as all we common dogs are by those
superior Beings—taxed by him without mercy,
obliged to work for him without pay, obliged to
grind our corn at his mill, obliged to feed scores
of his tame birds on our wretched crops, and
forbidden for our lives to keep a single tame
bird of our own, pillaged and plundered to that
degree that when we chanced to have a bit of
meat, we ate it in fear, with the door barred and
the shutters closed, that his people should not
see it and take it from us—I say, we were so
robbed, and hunted, and were made so poor, that
our father told us it was a dreadful thing to
bring a child into the world, and that what we
should most pray for, was, that our women
might be barren and our miserable race die
out!'

"I had never before seen the sense of being
oppressed, bursting forth like a fire. I had
supposed that it must be latent in the people
somewhere; but, I had never seen it break out,
until I saw it in the dying boy.

"'Nevertheless, Doctor, my sister married.
He was ailing at that time, poor fellow, and she
married her lover, that she might tend and comfort
him in our cottage—our dog-hut, as that man
would call it. She had not been married many
weeks, when that man's brother saw her and
admired her, and asked that man to lend her
to him—for what are husbands among us! He
was willing enough, but my sister was good
and virtuous, and hated his brother with a
hatred as strong as mine. What did the two
then, to persuade her husband to use his
influence with her, to make her willing?'

"The boy's eyes, which had been fixed on
mine, slowly turned to the looker-on, and I saw
in the two faces that all he said was true. The
two opposing kinds of pride confronting one
another, I can see, even in this Bastille; the
gentleman's, all negligent indifference; the
peasant's, all trodden-down sentiment, and
passionate revenge.

"'You know, Doctor, that it is among
the Rights of these Nobles to harness us
common dogs to carts, and drive us. They
so harnessed him and drove him. You know
that it is among their Rights to keep us in
their grounds all night, quieting the frogs, in
order that their noble sleep may not be
disturbed. They kept him out in the unwholesome
mists at night, and ordered him back into
his harness in the day. But he was not
persuaded. No! Taken out of harness one day
at noon, to feed—if he could find food—he
sobbed twelve times, once for every stroke of
the bell, and died on her bosom.'

'"Nothing human could have held life in the
boy but his determination to tell all his wrong.
He forced back the gathering shadows of death,
as he forced his clenched right hand to remain,
clenched, and to cover his wound.

"'Then, with that man's permission and
even with his aid, his brother took her away;
in spite of what I know she must have told his
brother—and what that is, will not be long
unknown to you, Doctor, if it is now—his brother
took her away—for his pleasure and diversion,