My father, André had been a groom for over thirty years
in the de Brissac household until they turned him out, old and sick,
without a sou. François, my little brother, supported the three of us.
I am a lace maker, unemployed, since ladies do not wear lace
during a revolution. One afternoon my brother did not return
from the 2nd Battalion—I went out for news, and returned to
a deserted house; the neighbors whispered that they had dragged
away my father, imprisoned him along with my brother.

I wanted to join them, but I was not on the list.
I wanted to kiss them, but it was not permitted.
I waited outside the courthouse, but never learned
the charges nor who denounced them

I followed the macabre convoy down sullen streets,
crossed the Seine at the Pont au Change, along rue Saint Antoine
outside the city walls to the square, “la Nation,” where the guillotine
from the Bastille was reassembled (residents of its old quartier
complained of odors, blood clotted cobblestones, & the flies).

I watched the iron wedge drop, and wanted to die with them,
but God held me fast. When I came to my senses, night had fallen,
the square was nearly deserted. I waited in the shadow; followed
the bloody track to Picpus, the former convent of the Augustines.
The carts disappeared behind a stout door into the garden
and reappeared empty. Only God can distinguish the de Noailles
from the Paris. My brother and my father lie beneath, with your sister,
your mother, and your grandmother. I come in summer and in winter
to pray in secret for their souls. It is my Sunday walk.