Suddenly, as though inspired by a will of its own, the fire flung forth a jet of flame upon the dead ivy that mantled the very wall on which Michelle Fléchard stood gazing. It was as if it had just discovered this network of withered branches; a spark greedily seized upon it, and the fire began to rise from twig to twig with the frightful rapidity of a powder-train. In the twinkling of an eye the flame reached the second story, and from thence a light was thrown into the one below. A vivid glare brought into instantaneous relief three little sleeping children.
It was a charming group, their little legs and arms intertwined, their eyelids closed, their faces sweetly smiling.
That cry of inexpressible anguish is given only to mothers. No sound can be more savage and yet pathetic. Uttered by a woman, it is like the cry of a she-wolf; and when one hears it from a wolf it might well come from a woman.
This cry of Michelle Fléchard was a howl. Hecuba howled, Homer tells us.
And this was the cry just heard by the Marquis de Lantenac.
He was between the outlet of the passage through which Halmalo had guided him in his escape, and the ravine. Through the tangled wildwood about him he saw the burning bridge, and the Tourgue reddened by the reflection; he pushed aside the branches, and discovered on the opposite side, above his head, on the edge of the plateau, in front of the burning castle, and in the full light of the conflagration, the haggard and woful face of a woman bending over the ravine.
This face was no longer the face of Michelle Fléchard; it was a Medusa. There is something formidable in intense agony. This peasant woman had changed into one of the Eumenides. The unknown rustic, low, ignorant, stupid, had suddenly taken on the epic proportions of despair. Great sorrows expand the soul to gigantic proportions. This mother was the embodiment of maternity. A summary of humanity rises to the superhuman; she stood towering above the edge of the ravine, within sight of the conflagration, in presence of that crime like a power from beyond the grave. Moaning like a wild beast, she stood in the attitude of a goddess, with a countenance like a flaming mask, hurling forth imprecations. Nothing could have been more imperious than the lightning that flashed from those eyes drowned in tears; her look was like a thunderbolt hurled against the conflagration.