the troupe.

Mademoiselle Capello confessed to me, years afterward, that she fully
expected to be executed, although she did not look for the ignominy of
hanging, but rather decapitation--and she firmly resolved to die with
the courage of the Capellos and the Kirkpatricks. To heighten this,
she kept repeating to herself all the names, titles and dignities in
her family, and thanked God that she was not as the other children
were, or even the cobbler's boy. And to render her exit more
dignified, she wiped the paint from her lips and cheeks and managed to
throw away her blond wig as the cart rolled under the dark and
forbidding archway of the Temple, between the two peaked towers that
had frowned there for five centuries.

CHAPTER III

THE RESCUE

The prison of the Temple was a huge gloomy building, fronting on two
streets. Monsieur, the Grand Prieur de Vendome, was governor of the
prison, and had a whole wing of it fitted up very luxuriously for
himself--for the Temple was the very pleasantest quarter of Paris, and
the wits, the songs, the plays of the Temple have been celebrated ever
since I knew Paris. Mirepoix was the deputy governor--there is always
in these places a governor who draws the money and a deputy who does
the work. Mirepoix was a great fool--I knew him well.

When the carts rattled under the archway which led into the courtyard
on which the great hall of the prison fronted, I had dismissed my
coachman and was waiting to see what could be done to screen
Mademoiselle Capello. A few minutes after I arrived, old Peter came,
breathless and almost speechless. I told him to remain in the
courtyard until I should deliver his young mistress into his hands.

The sight of the black archway, the great, silent courtyard dimly
lighted with lanterns--for night had fallen by that time--frightened
the children. They stopped laughing and some of them began to whimper;
the cobbler's boy had never stopped howling a moment.

I stood close and saw Mademoiselle Francezka descend, and I made her a
low bow, pointing to old Peter who stood close to me and made her a
sign. She understood, and flashed me a tremulous little smile as she
led the procession into the vast dark hall of the prison which opens
on the courtyard.

I went in too. It was but dimly lighted. Mirepoix was already there--a
weak, irresolute man of fifty or thereabouts, completely off his head,
listening first to Lafarge, then to Jacques Haret, and