The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-05-31


 lives, wolden-haired like her mother, and chattering comcally in the tongues of the Two Cities that held the skeins of their destiny.
 When Lucie was years old there came the sound as of great storm in France with dreadful sea rising St. Antoine, groveling no longer, was a dusky mass of scarecrows heaving to and fro, with frequent gleans of light above the billowy heads where steel blades and bayonets shone in the sun. tremen- dous roar arose in the throat of St. An toine and a forest of naked arms strug gled in the air like shriveled branches If trees in a winter wind, all the fingers con- vulsively clutching at every weapon or semblance of a weapon that was thrown up from the depths below. Who gave them out through what agency they crookedly quivered and jerked, scores at time, over the heads of the crowds like a kind of lightning, no eye in the throng could have told. But muskets were being distributed-so were powder and ball, knives, axes bikes, ev- | cry weapon that distracted ingenuity 1 could devise. People who could lay hold of nothing else set themselves, with the bleeding hands, to force stones and bricks out of their places in walls. All this raging centered around De- farges wine shop, where Defarge, him. self, begrimed with powder and sweat, rttcf iS man back, dragged this man forward. dis armed one to arm another, labored and strove in the widest of the uproar.
 Madame, not knitting today, was by his side, an ax in her resolute right hand ani a pistol and a cruelty sharp knife in her grdle.
 "Come!' at last cried Defarge in thunderous voice. "The Bastiller'
 With a roar as if all the breath of France had been shaped into the detested word. the living sea rose. Alarm bells ringing, drums beating, the sea raging and laundering on it's new beach. the et- tack began.
 Deep ditches, double drawbridge, mas sive stone walls. eight great towers, can non muskets. fire and smoke-in the fire and in the smoke, for the sea cast him up against a cannon and on the instant he became cannonier, Defarge of the wine shop worked like manful soldier, two fierce hours.
 Two fierce hours and one drawbridge taken ''To me, women," cries Madame, his wife, "to mel What! We can kill as well as the menr'
 Cannons, muskets, fire and smoke; and still Defarge of the wine shop at his gun, grown fiercely hot by the service of four fierce hours.
 A white flag from within the fortress, and a barley, all this dinly perceptible through the raging storm, nothing audi ble in it, suddenly the sea rising immeas- uably higher and wider and sweeping De- large of the wine shop over the lowers sd drawbridge. passed the massive stone outer walls, in among the eight Jgreat towers surrendered!
 In such.rislngs of fire and risngs of sea three years of tempest were consumed. Three more birthdays of little Lucie were woven by golden thread into the peace full tissues of the life of her home.
 To Tellson's bank every newcomer from France reported himself as a matter of course; for here were the guineas of Mon seigneur who had made provident remit tance to Tellson's anticipating the storm, and here had been the guineas of Mon seigneur who had taken to his noble heels too late.
 On a steaming afternoon Charles Dar- nay stood there talking over the latest news with MT. Lorry, who was preparing, despite his age, to go to Paris to look after the interests of the bank, imperiled | in that wild time.
 MT. Lorry held letter in his hand. Its address in French read: ''Very pressing | To Monsieur heretofore the Marquis st Evremonde of France. confided to the care of Messrs. Tellson & Co.,. London"