At the Sign of the Guillotine (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1895. Excerpt: ... At the Sign of the Guillotine CHAPTER I FLYING FROM THE TERROR It was the afternoon of a March day in the year 7cj4 bright, but cold. The sun was sinking into a great bank of heavy storm cloud, boding little but evil for the following morning, when a big, unwieldy coach lumbered heavily along a muddy road in the district of the Vendee, in western France. The two horses were being driven at their topmost speed, and every now and then a young man, clean-shaven and sharp-visaged, thrust his head out of the window on the left side, and incited the old coachman in no measured terms to quicken his pace. The wheels were richly plastered with mud; the horses were covered with sweat and foam; and the great springless vehicle jolted and A jarred in every rut of the primitive track that served for a road. Besides the restless young man, the coach contained one other occupant--old, deeply-lined and white-haired. His years could not be less than three-score and ten, and his face was stamped with an indefinable air of ecclesiasticism. Not that the wildest surmise could have found in the clothing or external outfit of either passenger a trace of anything removed from the secular. Their long riding-coats were cut in the latest fashion of Revolutionary Paris. Their American beavers, the mark of orthodox Jacobinism, were adorned with the brightest tricolour cockades; their necks were enswathed in red mufflers, and they had already replaced the old-fashioned knee breeches with the latest Republican trouser; their hair was destitute of powder, and cut short, close to the head, in the manner affected only by the most rigid patriots. Such travellers, in such costume, you might have seen in many parts of France at this moment. But their movements soon began to indicate that the...