n; lightning furrowed the heavy motionless
clouds; in the distance the occasional rumble of thunder was heard,
answered by the cannon of the royal fete. The crowd was divided between
the powers of heaven and earth: the terrible majesty of the Eternal on
one side, on the other the frivolous pomp of royalty--eternal punishment
and transient grandeur in opposition. Like the waters of a flood leaving
dry the fields which they have covered, so the waves of the multitude
forsook their usual course. Thousands of men and women crowded together
along the route which the death-cart would take; an ocean of heads
undulated like the ears in a wheatfield. The old houses, hired at high
rates, quivered under the weight of eager spectators, and the window
sashes had been removed to afford a better view.

Attired in the shirt worn by condemned criminals, and bearing a placard
both in front and behind, with the words "Wilful Poisoner," Derues
descended the great staircase of the Chatelet with a firm step. It was
at this moment, on seeing the crucifix, that he exclaimed, "O Christ, I
shall suffer like Thee!" He mounted the tumbril, looking right and
left amongst the crowd. During the progress he recognised and bowed to
several of his old associates, and bade adieu in a clear voice to the
former mistress of his 'prentice days, who has recorded that she never
saw him look so pleasant. Arrived at the door of Notre Dame, where
the clerk was awaiting him, he descended from the tumbril without
assistance, took a lighted wax taper weighing two pounds in his hand,
and did penance, kneeling, bareheaded and barefooted, a rope round his
neck, repeating the words of the death-warrant. He then reascended the
cart in the midst of the cries and execrations of the populace, to which
he appeared quite insensible. One voice only, endeavouring to dominate
the tumult, caused him to turn his head: it was that of the hawker who
was crying his sentence, and who broke off now and then to say--

"Well! my poor gossip Derues, how do you like that fine carriage you're
in? Oh yes, mutter your prayers and look up to heaven as much as you
like, you won't take us in now. Ah! thief who said I stole from you!
Wasn't I right when I said I should be selling your sentence some day?"

Then, adding her own wrongs to the list of crimes, she declared that the
Parliament had condemned him as much for having falsely accused her of
theft as for having poisoned Madame de Lamotte an