hat balcony, at the corner of the Place, she had just caught sight of
him, of her friend, her lord, Phoebus, the other apparition of her life!

The judge had lied! the priest had lied! it was certainly he, she could
not doubt it; he was there, handsome, alive, dressed in his brilliant
uniform, his plume on his head, his sword by his side!

"Phoebus!" she cried, "my Phoebus!"

And she tried to stretch towards him arms trembling with love and
rapture, but they were bound.

Then she saw the captain frown, a beautiful young girl who was leaning
against him gazed at him with disdainful lips and irritated eyes; then
Phoebus uttered some words which did not reach her, and both disappeared
precipitately behind the window opening upon the balcony, which closed
after them.

"Phoebus!" she cried wildly, "can it be you believe it?" A monstrous
thought had just presented itself to her. She remembered that she had
been condemned to death for murder committed on the person of Phoebus de
Chateaupers.

She had borne up until that moment. But this last blow was too harsh.
She fell lifeless on the pavement.

"Come," said Charmolue, "carry her to the cart, and make an end of it."

No one had yet observed in the gallery of the statues of the kings,
carved directly above the arches of the portal, a strange spectator, who
had, up to that time, observed everything with such impassiveness, with
a neck so strained, a visage so hideous that, in his motley accoutrement
of red and violet, he might have been taken for one of those stone
monsters through whose mouths the long gutters of the cathedral have
discharged their waters for six hundred years. This spectator had missed
nothing that had taken place since midday in front of the portal of
Notre-Dame. And at the very beginning he had securely fastened to one of
the small columns a large knotted rope, one end of which trailed on the
flight of steps below. This being done, he began to look on tranquilly,
whistling from time to time when a blackbird flitted past. Suddenly,
at the moment when the superintendent's assistants were preparing
to execute Charmolue's phlegmatic order, he threw his leg over the
balustrade of the gallery, seized the rope with his feet, his knees and
his hands; then he was seen to glide down the facade, as a drop of
rain slips down a window-pane, rush to the two executioners with the
swiftness of a cat which has fallen from a roof, knock them down with
two enormous f