as
though speaking to himself,--

"Very fine, monsieur the bailiff! You had there between your teeth a
pretty slice of our Paris."

All at once he broke out explosively, "_Pasque-Dieu_! What people are
those who claim to be voyers, justiciaries, lords and masters in our
domains? who have their tollgates at the end of every field? their
gallows and their hangman at every cross-road among our people? So that
as the Greek believed that he had as many gods as there were fountains,
and the Persian as many as he beheld stars, the Frenchman counts as many
kings as he sees gibbets! Pardieu! 'tis an evil thing, and the confusion
of it displeases me. I should greatly like to know whether it be the
mercy of God that there should be in Paris any other lord than the king,
any other judge than our parliament, any other emperor than ourselves in
this empire! By the faith of my soul! the day must certainly come when
there shall exist in France but one king, one lord, one judge, one
headsman, as there is in paradise but one God!"

He lifted his cap again, and continued, still dreamily, with the air
and accent of a hunter who is cheering on his pack of hounds: "Good, my
people! bravely done! break these false lords! do your duty! at them!
have at them! pillage them! take them! sack them!... Ah! you want to be
kings, messeigneurs? On, my people on!"

Here he interrupted himself abruptly, bit his lips as though to take
back his thought which had already half escaped, bent his piercing eyes
in turn on each of the five persons who surrounded him, and suddenly
grasping his hat with both hands and staring full at it, he said to it:
"Oh! I would burn you if you knew what there was in my head."

Then casting about him once more the cautious and uneasy glance of the
fox re-entering his hole,--

"No matter! we will succor monsieur the bailiff. Unfortunately, we have
but few troops here at the present moment, against so great a populace.
We must wait until to-morrow. The order will be transmitted to the City
and every one who is caught will be immediately hung."

"By the way, sire," said Gossip Coictier, "I had forgotten that in the
first agitation, the watch have seized two laggards of the band. If your
majesty desires to see these men, they are here."

"If I desire to see them!" cried the king. "What! _Pasque-Dieu_! You
forget a thing like that! Run quick, you, Olivier! Go, seek them!"

Master Olivier quitted the room and returned a mo