opened through curiosity, the eyes which she
had closed through fear.

A tumbrel drawn by a stout Norman horse, and all surrounded by cavalry
in violet livery with white crosses, had just debouched upon the Place
through the Rue Saint-Pierre-aux-Boeufs. The sergeants of the watch were
clearing a passage for it through the crowd, by stout blows from their
clubs. Beside the cart rode several officers of justice and police,
recognizable by their black costume and their awkwardness in the saddle.
Master Jacques Charmolue paraded at their head.

In the fatal cart sat a young girl with her arms tied behind her back,
and with no priest beside her. She was in her shift; her long black hair
(the fashion then was to cut it off only at the foot of the gallows)
fell in disorder upon her half-bared throat and shoulders.

Athwart that waving hair, more glossy than the plumage of a raven, a
thick, rough, gray rope was visible, twisted and knotted, chafing her
delicate collar-bones and twining round the charming neck of the poor
girl, like an earthworm round a flower. Beneath that rope glittered a
tiny amulet ornamented with bits of green glass, which had been left to
her no doubt, because nothing is refused to those who are about to die.
The spectators in the windows could see in the bottom of the cart her
naked legs which she strove to hide beneath her, as by a final feminine
instinct. At her feet lay a little goat, bound. The condemned girl held
together with her teeth her imperfectly fastened shift. One would have
said that she suffered still more in her misery from being thus exposed
almost naked to the eyes of all. Alas! modesty is not made for such
shocks.

"Jesus!" said Fleur-de-Lys hastily to the captain. "Look fair cousin,
'tis that wretched Bohemian with the goat."

So saying, she turned to Phoebus. His eyes were fixed on the tumbrel. He
was very pale.

"What Bohemian with the goat?" he stammered.

"What!" resumed Fleur-de-Lys, "do you not remember?"

Phoebus interrupted her.

"I do not know what you mean."

He made a step to re-enter the room, but Fleur-de-Lys, whose jealousy,
previously so vividly aroused by this same gypsy, had just been
re-awakened, Fleur-de-Lys gave him a look full of penetration and
distrust. She vaguely recalled at that moment having heard of a captain
mixed up in the trial of that witch.

"What is the matter with you?" she said to Phoebus, "one would say, that
this woman had disturbed