The horrible massacre, days and nights long, which, within a few rounds of the clock, was to set a great mark of blood upon the blessed garnering time of harvest, was as far out of his knowledge as if it had been a hundred thousand years away.
The "sharp female newly-born, and called La Guillotine," was hardly known to him, or to the generality of people, by name.
The frightful deeds that were to be soon done, were probably unimagined at that time in the brains of the doers.
How could they have a place in the shadowy conceptions of a gentle mind?
Of unjust treatment in detention and hardship, and in cruel separation from his wife and child, he foreshadowed the likelihood, or the certainty; but, beyond this, he dreaded nothing distinctly.
With this on his mind, which was enough to carry into a dreary prison courtyard, he arrived at the prison of La Force.
A man with a bloated face opened the strong wicket, to whom Defarge presented "The Emigrant Evremonde."
"What the Devil! How many more of them!" exclaimed the man with the bloated face.
Defarge took his receipt without noticing the exclamation, and withdrew, with his two fellow-patriots.
"What the Devil, I say again!" exclaimed the gaoler, left with his wife. "How many more!"