"To live for them, _bonne femme_," the soldier replied, still jeeringly. Then, seeing that this woman's face had clouded with a look of pain, he said in a gentler voice, "Ah! pardon. I have not wounded you?" "Nay. Not much. But I have loved and been left behind. I would I might have gone too." "They say he and the woman and the old Jew who is to hang," a cripple exclaimed, "sought to kill the King. _Oh-é! Oh-é!_" the creature grunted, "I would I were tall enough to see the Jew swinging. _Mon brave_," looking up at the ex-soldier, "will you not lift me to your shoulder when they come out?" "Ay! will I, and fling you at the Jew's head afterwards. If you miss him mayhap you will fall into the brazier. And, so, an end to you." "Is there a brazier! And for the Jew! Oh! Oh! Oh! To burn him all up. Oh! Oh!" and the cripple, in his efforts to caper about, trod so on his neighbours' feet that they kicked and cuffed him till he was almost senseless. "The Dutch fleet was off Havre a week ago," one old man remarked to another in solemn, almost awestruck, whispers. "Ah! if the Normans had been ready. If the enemy had landed. If France had been invaded. Oh, _mon Dieu!_" "_Pschut!_" exclaimed the other old man, one of different mettle from his companion. "The Normans ready! _Fichtre pour les Normans!_ There were none who had the power to cause a single village to rise. France might have slept in peace." "_Attention!_" rang out the voice of the officer in command of the Mousquetaires a little while later, and, as it did so, the crowd roared like so many beasts of prey; then, gradually, yet quickly, too, the roar subsided into a deep, hoarse murmur, and an indescribable tremor, or movement, passed through the thousands present. For, now, the great bell of the Bastille that had, in days past, so often sounded the tocsin over St. Antoine--and was so often to sound it again in days to come--was tolling slowly: the huge doors were open, they were coming forth. Ahead of all walked some bareheaded and barefooted Carmelites chanting the _Salve Regina_: following them, the Governor of the Bastille and the Lieutenant du Roi marched side by side. Next, came the headsman and his assistants, masked, the former carrying his axe over his shoulder. Behind them the condemned ones came forth. First, with the Père Bourdaloue by his side, appeared De Beaurepaire, superb and stately, his head bare. He was dressed all in black velvet but, underneath his outer coat might be caught the gleam of his handsome _justaucorps_. Yet, noble as his presence was, there was missing from his face to-day the look of arrogance and haughty contempt that had hitherto been the one disfigurement of his manly beauty. Now, he walked calmly and solemnly and resigned, as one might walk who followed another to his grave instead of as one who, with every step he took, drew nearer to his own.