once, was tearing from house to house, rousing the women.
The men were terrible, in the bloody-minded anger with which
they looked from windows, caught up what arms they had, and
came pouring down into the streets; but, the women were a sight
to chill the boldest. From such household occupations as their
bare poverty yielded, from their children, from their aged and
their sick crouching on the bare ground famished and naked, they
ran out with streaming hair, urging one another, and themselves,
to madness with the wildest cries and actions. Villain Foulon
taken, my sister! Old Foulon taken, my mother! Miscreant Foulon
taken, my daughter! Then, a score of others ran into the midst of
these, beating their breasts, tearing their hair, and screaming,
Foulon alive! Foulon who told the starving people they might eat
grass! Foulon who told my old father that he might eat grass,
when I had no bread to give him! Foulon who told my baby it
Charles Dickens ElecBook Classics
might suck grass, when these breasts were dry with want! O
mother of God, this Foulon! O Heaven, our suffering! Hear me, my
dead baby and my withered father: I swear on my knees, on these
stones to avenge you on Foulon! Husbands, and brothers, and
young men, Give us the blood of Foulon, Give us the head of
Foulon, Give us the heart of Foulon, Give us the body and soul of
Foulon, Rend Foulon to pieces, and dig him into the ground, that
grass may grow from him! With these cries, numbers of the
women, lashed into blind frenzy, whirled about, striking and
tearing at their own friends until they dropped into a passionate
swoon, and we