outside the town towards the valley
they lost sight of him; but two hours later he returned laughing and
rolling against the walls. He was drunk, absolutely drunk.

Nothing could cure him.

Driven from home by his mother, he became a wagon driver, and drove the
charcoal wagons for the Pougrisel firm, which is still in existence.

His reputation as a drunkard became so well known and spread so far that
even at Evreux they talked of Mme. Husson's "Rosier," and the sots of
the countryside have been given that nickname.

A good deed is never lost.

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 meado