Haunted by the fear of unknown perils, for several nights no one had been able to close their eyes, or even dared to go to bed. To do so, seemed to court the last sleep and to abandon all hope of awakening again. Every face was livid with terror, every eye was sunken; the hair was dishevelled, the countenance haggard and stamped with the impress of the most frightful anguish which had ever preyed upon the human soul.
The atmosphere was growing drier and warmer. Since the evening before, no one had bethought himself of food, and the stomach, usually so imperious in its demands, craved for nothing. A burning thirst was the first physiological effect of the dryness of the atmosphere, and the most self-restrained sought, in every possible way, to quench it, though without success. Physical pain had begun its work, and was soon to dominate mental suffering. Hour by hour, respiration became more difficult, more exhausting and more painful. Little children, in the presence of this new suffering, appealed in tears to their mothers.
At Paris, London, Rome and St. Petersburg, in every capital, in every city, in every village, the terrified population wandered about distractedly, like ants when their habitations are disturbed. All the business of ordinary life was neglected, abandoned, forgotten; every project was set aside. No one cared any longer for anything, for his house, his family, his life. There existed a moral prostration and dejection, more complete than even that which is produced by sea-sickness. Some few, abandoning themselves to the exaltation of love, seemed to live only for each other, strangers to the universal panic.
Catholic and Protestant churches, Jewish synagogues, Greek chapels, Mohammedan mosques and Buddhist temples, the sanctuaries of the new Gallican religion—in short, the places of assembly of every sect into which the idiosyncrasies of belief had divided mankind, were thronged by the faithful on that memorable day of Friday, July 13th; and even at Paris the crowds besieging the portals were such that no one could get near the churches, within which were to be seen vast multitudes, all prostrate upon the ground. Prayers were muttered in low tones, but no chant, no organ, no bell was to be heard. The confessionals were surrounded by penitents, waiting their turn, as in those early days of sincere and naïve faith described by the historians of the middle ages.