All Évreux was out of doors, as Thomas Lindet, travel-soiled and weary, entered the city. The double avenue of chestnuts before the church and seminary of S. Taurin was thronged with people, and a large triumphal arch spanned the road just beyond the square, the sides adorned with pilasters of gilt paper and banks of flowers, and the summit crowned with a banner emblazoned with the lilies of France. In the tympanum of the arch was a niche lined with crimson cloth destined to contain a statue of S. Louis, lent for the occasion by the superior of the seminary. The raising of the pious king to his destined position was an operation which engaged all eyes, and provided conversation for all tongues. It is wonderful how much noise and commotion attends the execution of a very simple performance in France. Every spectator is by the fact of his presence constituted an adviser, and those engaged on the work which attracts observation harangue and expostulate and protest at the top of their voices. Those whose task it was to translate S. Louis from the ground to his elevated pedestal, proceeded with their duty in a somewhat clumsy and unworkmanlike manner. A pulley had been erected at the apex of the gable above the arch, and a cord ran over it into the midst of the crowd which pulled promiscuously and with varying force at the rope. The other end of the rope was attached to the neck of the monarch, and as he was raised he dangled in the centre of the archway, much more like a felon undergoing the extreme penalty of the law, than a canonized saint. In the meanwhile, two vociferous men in blue blouses and trowsers, half way up two ladders, were supposed to steady the king, but on account of the jerky manner in which the crowd hauled at the rope, they were unable to achieve their object, and they vented their displeasure in oaths. All at once there was a crash. The head had separated from the body--the statue was in plaster; and first down fell the trunk and then the crowned head. The catastrophe caused a sudden silence to fall on the multitude, but it was soon broken by execrations and invocations of ‘mille diables.’ Then a general rush was made to inspect the remains of the decapitated king. ‘There was absolutely no piece of wood or wire to keep head and trunk together!’ exclaimed one of the workmen, elevating the fragment of head. ‘Of course it broke off. Who ever heard of a plaster cast without a nucleus of solid wood or iron in the middle!’ ‘Out of the way! make room,’ shouted a coachman, cracking his whip; and the crowd started aside to allow a handsome lumbering coach to roll by, and pass under the triumphal arch. Two heads were protruded from the windows, to see what caused the commotion and throng; and Lindet, happening to look in that direction, saw the faces of Foulon and Berthier. ‘Why are all these preparations being made?’ asked Lindet of a shopman near him. ‘Ah!’ exclaimed the man; ‘don’t you know that Monsieur the Prince is coming?’