Chapter 26

Chapter XXVI:
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