, who had had the misfortune to slay a husband, while he had only
done a trifling injury to a peasant girl. The duke listened to the
arguments of Vieux par-Chemins, and said that he was a man of good
parts. Then he made his memorable decree, that if, as this beggar
declared, he had need of such gratification at his age he gave
permission to prove it at the foot of the ladder which he would have
to mount to be hanged, according to the sentence already passed on him
by the provost; that if then, the rope being round his neck, between
the priest and the hangman, a like desire seized him he should have a
free pardon.

This decree becoming known, there was a tremendous crowd to see the
old fellow led to the gallows. There was a line drawn up as if for a
ducal entry, and in it many more bonnets than hats. Vieux par-Chemins
was saved by a lady curious to see how this precious violator would
finish his career. She told the duke that religion demanded that he
should have a fair chance. And she dressed herself as if for a ball;
she brought intentionally into evidence two hillocks of such snowy
whiteness that the whitest linen neckerchief would have paled before
them; indeed, these fruits of love stood out, without a wrinkle, over
her corset, like two beautiful apples, and made one's mouth water, so
exquisite were they. This noble lady, who was one of those who rouse
one's manhood, had a smile ready on her lips for the old fellow. Vieux
par-Chemins, dressed in garments of coarse cloth, more certain of
being in the desired state after hanging than before it, came along
between the officers of justice with a sad countenance, glancing now
here and there, and seeing nothing but head-dresses; and he would he
declared, have given a hundred crowns for a girl tucked up as was the
cowherdess, whose charms, though they had been his ruin, he still
remembered, and they might still have saved him; but, as he was old,
the remembrance was not sufficiently recent. But when, at the foot of
the ladder, he saw the twin charms of the lady, and the pretty delta
that their confluent rotundities produced, the sight so much excited
him that his emotion was patent to the spectators.

"Make haste and see that the required conditions are fulfilled," said
he to the officers. "I have gained my pardon but I cannot answer for
my saviour."

The lady was well pleased with this homage, which, she said, was
greater than his offence. The guards, whose business it