ther told me yesterday of
one called Laurent. You understand, my dear fellow, that Laurent is a
fictitious name meant to hide the real name, just as a mask hides the
face. This Laurent combined all the qualities of a hero of romance, all
the accomplishments, as you English say, who, under pretext that you
were once Normans, allow yourselves occasionally to enrich your language
with a picturesque expression, or some word which has long, poor beggar!
asked and been refused admittance of our own scholars. This Laurent was
ideally handsome. He was one of seventy-two Companions of Jehu who have
lately been tried at Yssen-geaux. Seventy were acquitted; he and one
other were the only ones condemned to death. The innocent men were
released at once, but Laurent and his companion were put in prison to
await the guillotine. But, pooh! Master Laurent had too pretty a head
to fall under the executioner's ignoble knife. The judges who condemned
him, the curious who expected to witness him executed, had forgotten
what Montaigne calls the corporeal recommendation of beauty. There was
a woman belonging to the jailer of Yssen-geaux, his daughter, sister
or niece; history--for it is history and not romance that I am telling
you--history does not say which. At all events the woman, whoever she
was, fell in love with the handsome prisoner, so much in love that
two hours before the execution, just as Master Laurent, expecting the
executioner, was sleeping, or pretending to sleep, as usually happens
in such cases, his guardian angel came to him. I don't know how they
managed; for the two lovers, for the best of reasons, never told the
details; but the truth is--now remember; Sir John, that this is truth
and not fiction--that Laurent was free, but, to his great regret, unable
to save his comrade in the adjoining dungeon. Gensonne, under like
circumstances, refused to escape, preferring to die with the other
Girondins; but Gensonne did not have the head of Antinous on the body of
Apollo. The handsomer the head, you understand, the more one holds on to
it. So Laurent accepted the freedom offered him and escaped; a horse
was waiting for him at the next village. The young girl, who might have
retarded or hindered his flight, was to rejoin him the next day. Dawn
came, but not the guardian angel. It seems that our hero cared more for
his mistress than he did for his companion; he left his comrade, but
he would not go without her. It was six o'clock, t