aughter,
presented a spectacle worthy of pity.

Rennet Cousin grasped the young girl by the middle of her body, beneath
her beautiful shoulders. When she felt that hand, she cried, "Heuh!" and
fainted. The executioner who was shedding large tears upon her, drop
by drop, was about to bear her away in his arms. He tried to detach the
mother, who had, so to speak, knotted her hands around her daughter's
waist; but she clung so strongly to her child, that it was impossible
to separate them. Then Rennet Cousin dragged the young girl outside the
cell, and the mother after her. The mother's eyes were also closed.

At that moment, the sun rose, and there was already on the Place a
fairly numerous assembly of people who looked on from a distance at what
was being thus dragged along the pavement to the gibbet. For that was
Provost Tristan's way at executions. He had a passion for preventing the
approach of the curious.

There was no one at the windows. Only at a distance, at the summit of
that one of the towers of Notre-Dame which commands the Greve, two men
outlined in black against the light morning sky, and who seemed to be
looking on, were visible.

Rennet Cousin paused at the foot of the fatal ladder, with that which
he was dragging, and, barely breathing, with so much pity did the thing
inspire him, he passed the rope around the lovely neck of the young
girl. The unfortunate child felt the horrible touch of the hemp. She
raised her eyelids, and saw the fleshless arm of the stone gallows
extended above her head. Then she shook herself and shrieked in a loud
and heartrending voice: "No! no! I will not!" Her mother, whose head was
buried and concealed in her daughter's garments, said not a word; only
her whole body could be seen to quiver, and she was heard to redouble
her kisses on her child. The executioner took advantage of this moment
to hastily loose the arms with which she clasped the condemned girl.
Either through exhaustion or despair, she let him have his way. Then he
took the young girl on his shoulder, from which the charming creature
hung, gracefully bent over his large head. Then he set his foot on the
ladder in order to ascend.

At that moment, the mother who was crouching on the pavement, opened
her eyes wide. Without uttering a cry, she raised herself erect with
a terrible expression; then she flung herself upon the hand of the
executioner, like a beast on its prey, and bit it. It was done like a
flash of