As the fatal vehicle which bore him made its appearance on the esplanade without the gates of the prison, a deep hum of satisfaction ran through the assembled concourse, rising and deepening gradually into a savage howl like that of a hungry tiger. Then, then blazed out the haughty spirit, the indomitable pride of the French noble! Then shame, and fear, and death itself, which he was looking even now full in the face, were all forgotten, all absorbed, in his overwhelming scorn of the people! The blood rushed in a torrent to his brow, his eye seemed to lighten forth actual fire, as he raised his right hand aloft--loaded although it was with such a mass of iron as a Greek athlete might have shunned to lift--and shook it at the clamorous mob, with a glare of scorn and fury that showed how, had he been at liberty, he would have dealt with the revilers of his fallen state. “_Sacré canaille!_” he hissed through his hard-set teeth--“back to your gutters and your garbage; or follow, if you can, in silence, and learn, if ye lack not courage to look on, how a man should die!” The reproof told: for, though at the contemptuous tone and fell insult of the first words, the clamor of the rabble-rout waxed wilder, there was so much true dignity in the last sentiment he uttered, and the fate to which he was going was so hideous, that a key was struck in the popular heart, and thenceforth the tone of the spectators was changed altogether. It was the exultation of the people over the downfall and disgrace of a noble, that had found tongue in that savage conclamation; it was the apprehension that his dignity, and the interest of his great name, would win him pardon from the partial justice of the king, that had rendered them pitiless and savage: and now that their own cruel will was about to be gratified, as they beheld how dauntlessly the proud lord went to a death of torture, they were stricken with a sort of secret shame, and followed the dread train in sullen silence.