ost.

Dr. Marambot rubbed his hands as he finished his story. I asked:

"Did you know the 'Rosier'?"

"Yes. I had the honor of closing his eyes."

"What did he die of?"

"An attack of delirium tremens, of course."

We had arrived at the old citadel, a pile of ruined walls dominated by
the enormous tower of St. Thomas of Canterbury and the one called the
Prisoner's Tower.

Marambot told me the story of this prisoner, who, with the aid of a nail,
covered the walls of his dungeon with sculptures, tracing the reflections
of the sun as it glanced through the narrow slit of a loophole.

I also learned that Clothaire II had given the patrimony of Gisors to his
cousin, Saint Romain, bishop of Rouen; that Gisors ceased to be the
capital of the whole of Vexin after the treaty of Saint-Clair-sur-Epte;
that the town is the chief strategic centre of all that portion of
France, and that in consequence of this advantage she was taken and
retaken over and over again. At the command of William the Red, the
eminent engineer, Robert de Bellesme, constructed there a powerful
fortress that was attacked later by Louis le Gros, then by the Norman
barons, was defended by Robert de Candos, was finally ceded to Louis le
Gros by Geoffry Plantagenet, was retaken by the English in consequence of
the treachery of the Knights-Templars, was contested by Philippe-Augustus
and Richard the Lionhearted, was set on fire by Edward III of England,
who could not take the castle, was again taken by the English in 1419,
restored later to Charles VIII by Richard de Marbury, was taken by the
Duke of Calabria occupied by the League, inhabited by Henry IV, etc.,
etc.

And Marambot, eager and almost eloquent, continued:

"What beggars, those English! And what sots, my boy; they are all
'Rosiers,' those hypocrites!"

Then, after a silence, stretching out his arm towards the tiny river that
glistened in the meadows, he said:

"Did you know that Henry Monnier was one of the most untiring fishermen
on the banks of the Epte?"

"No, I did not know it."

"And Bouffe, my boy, Bouffe was a painter on glass."

"You are joking!"

"No, indeed. How is it you do not know these things?"

THE ADOPTED SON

The two cottages stood beside each other at the foot of a hill near a
little seashore resort. The two peasants labored hard on the unproductive
soil to rear their little ones, and each family had four.

Before the adjoining doors a whole troop of urc