in
her heart as a dear and tender memory. Irritable as I am, and always
inclined to violence in the case of anything that is an obstacle or an
offence to me, I am astonished at the philosophical resignation and the
proud calm I have shown on the momentous occasions of life, and above
all on this one.

It was two o'clock in the morning. The case had lasted for fourteen
hours. A silence as of death reigned over the court, which was as full
and as attentive as at the beginning, so fond are mortals of anything in
the nature of a show. That offered by the criminal court at this moment
was somewhat dismal. Those men in red robes, as pale and stern and
implacable as the Council of Ten at Venice; those ghosts of women decked
with flowers, who, by the dim light of the tapers, looked like mere
reflections of life hovering in the galleries above the priests of
death; the muskets of the guard glittering in the gloom in the back of
the court; the heart-broken attitude of my poor sergeant, who had fallen
at my feet; the silent but vast delight of the Trappist, still standing
unwearied near the bar; the mournful note of some convent bell in the
neighbourhood beginning to ring for matins amid the silence of the
assembly--was not all this enough to touch the nerves of the wives of
the farmers-general and to send a thrill through the brawny breasts of
the tanners in the body of the court?

Suddenly, just as the court was about to disperse, a figure like that of
the traditional peasant of the Danube--squat, rugged, barefooted, with
a long beard, dishevelled hair, a broad, grave brow, and a stern,
commanding glance--rose in the midst of the flickering reflections by
which the hall was half lighted, and standing erect before the bar, said
in a deep, striking voice:

"I, Jean le Houx, known as Patience, oppose this judgment as iniquitous
in substance and illegal in form. I demand that it be revised, so that
I may give my evidence, which is necessary, may be of sovereign
importance, and should have been waited for."

"If you had anything to say," cried the King's advocate, in a passion,
"why did you not present yourself when you were summoned. You are
imposing on the court by pretending that you have important evidence to
give."

"And you," answered Patience, more slowly and in an even deeper tone
than before, "you are imposing on the public by pretending that I have
not. You know well enough that I must have."

"Remember where you a