kind of
secret, calm impatience, as if he had expected, hoped for, something at
the end of this massacre.

Meanwhile, they were approaching the place where little Louise Roque had
been found. At length, they came to it one evening, at the hour of
twilight.

As it was dark, the sky being overcast, the woodcutters wanted to stop
their work, putting off till next day the fall of an enormous
beech-tree, but the master objected to this, and insisted that even at
this hour they should lop and cut down this giant, which had
overshadowed the crime.

When the lopper had laid it bare, had finished its toilets for the
guillotine, when the woodcutters were about to sap its base, five men
commenced hauling at the rope attached to the top.

The tree resisted; its powerful trunk, although notched up to the middle
was as rigid as iron. The workmen, altogether, with a sort of regular
jump, strained at the rope, stooping down to the ground, and they gave
vent to a cry with throats out of breath, so as to indicate and direct
their efforts.

Two woodcutters standing close to the giant, remained with axes in their
grip, like two executioners ready to strike once more, and Renardet,
motionless, with his hand on the bark, awaited the fall with an uneasy,
nervous feeling.

One of the men said to him:

"You're too near, Monsieur le Maire. When it falls, it may hurt you."

He did not reply and did not recoil. He seemed ready himself to catch
the beech-tree in his open arms in order to cast it on the ground like a
wrestler.

All at once, at the foot of the tall column of wood there was a rent
which seemed to run to the top, like a painful shake; and it bent
slightly, ready to fall, but still resisting. The men, in a state of
excitement, stiffened their arms, renewed their efforts with greater
vigor, and, just as the tree, breaking, came crashing down, Renardet
suddenly made forward step, then stopped, his shoulders raised to
receive the irresistible shock, the mortal shock which would crush him
on the earth.

But the beech-tree, having deviated a little, only rubbed against his
loins, throwing him on his face five meters away.

The workmen dashed forward to lift him up. He had already risen to his
knees, stupefied, with wandering eyes, and passing his hand across his
forehead, as if he were awaking out of an attack of madness.

When he had got to his feet once more, the men, astonished, questioned
him, not being able to understa