patroness,
pardon me. I will only do it this once. This criminal must be punished.
I assure you, madame the virgin, my good mistress, that she is a
sorceress who is not worthy of your amiable protection. You know,
madame, that many very pious princes have overstepped the privileges
of the churches for the glory of God and the necessities of the State.
Saint Hugues, bishop of England, permitted King Edward to hang a witch
in his church. Saint-Louis of France, my master, transgressed, with the
same object, the church of Monsieur Saint-Paul; and Monsieur Alphonse,
son of the king of Jerusalem, the very church of the Holy Sepulchre.
Pardon me, then, for this once. Our Lady of Paris, I will never do so
again, and I will give you a fine statue of silver, like the one which I
gave last year to Our Lady of Ecouys. So be it."

He made the sign of the cross, rose, donned his hat once more, and said
to Tristan,--

"Be diligent, gossip. Take Monsieur Chateaupers with you. You will cause
the tocsin to be sounded. You will crush the populace. You will seize
the witch. 'Tis said. And I mean the business of the execution to be
done by you. You will render me an account of it. Come, Olivier, I shall
not go to bed this night. Shave me."

Tristan l'Hermite bowed and departed. Then the king, dismissing Rym and
Coppenole with a gesture,--

"God guard you, messieurs, my good friends the Flemings. Go, take a
little repose. The night advances, and we are nearer the morning than
the evening."

Both retired and gained their apartments under the guidance of the
captain of the Bastille. Coppenole said to Guillaume Rym,--

"Hum! I have had enough of that coughing king! I have seen Charles of
Burgundy drunk, and he was less malignant than Louis XI. when ailing."

"Master Jacques," replied Rym, "'tis because wine renders kings less
cruel than does barley water."

CHAPTER VI. LITTLE SWORD IN POCKET.

On emerging from the Bastille, Gringoire descended the Rue Saint-Antoine
with the swiftness of a runaway horse. On arriving at the Baudoyer gate,
he walked straight to the stone cross which rose in the middle of that
place, as though he were able to distinguish in the darkness the figure
of a man clad and cloaked in black, who was seated on the steps of the
cross.

"Is it you, master?" said Gringoire.

The personage in black rose.

"Death and passion! You make me boil, Gringoire. The man on the tower of
Saint-Gervais has just cri