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 and her son!

When arrived at the scaffold, he gazed around him, and a sort of shiver
of impatience ran through the crowd. He smiled, and as if anxious to
trick mankind for the last time, asked to be taken to the Hotel de Ville,
which was granted, in the hope that he would at last make some
confession; b