way to heighten the light of his eye, which glittered with
the luminous ferocity of a wolf skulking on the watch in a forest. Under
his lion nose, with its flaring nostrils, a large and ill-kept moustache
(for he despised all toilet niceties) completely concealed the upper
lip. Happily for the countess, her husband's wide mouth was silent
at this moment, for the softest sounds of that harsh voice made her
tremble. Though the Comte d'Herouville was barely fifty years of age,
he appeared at first sight to be sixty, so much had the toils of war,
without injuring his robust constitution, dilapidated him physically.

The countess, who was now in her nineteenth year, made a painful
contrast to that large, repulsive figure. She was fair and slim. Her
chestnut locks, threaded with gold, played upon her neck like russet
shadows, and defined a face such as Carlo Dolce has painted for his
ivory-toned madonnas,--a face which now seemed ready to expire under
the increasing attacks of physical pain. You might have thought her the
apparition of an angel sent from heaven to soften the iron will of the
terrible count.

"No, he will not kill us!" she cried to herself mentally, after
contemplating her husband for a long time. "He is frank, courageous,
faithful to his word--faithful to his word!"

Repeating that last sentence in her thoughts, she trembled violently,
and remained as if stupefied.

To understand the horror of her present situation, we must add that
this nocturnal scene took place in 1591, a period when civil war raged
throughout France, and the laws had no vigor. The excesses of the
League, opposed to the accession of Henri IV., surpassed the calamities
of the religious wars. License was so universal that no one was
surprised to see a great lord kill his enemy in open day. When a
military expedition, having a private object, was led in the name of the
King or of the League, one or other of these parties applauded it. It
was thus that Blagny, a soldier, came near becoming a sovereign prince
at the gates of France. Sometime before Henri III.'s death, a court lady
murdered a nobleman who made offensive remarks about her. One of the
king's minions remarked to him:--

"Hey! vive Dieu! sire, she daggered him finely!"

The Comte d'Herouville, one of the most rabid royalists in Normandy,
kept the part of that province which adjoins Brittany under subjection
to Henri IV. by the rigor of his executions. The head of one of the