poverty." He tells a
story of Napoleon in flight down the Rhone, of the women who cried out
at him, reviling him, bidding him give back their sons, shaking their
fists and crying out, "Into the Rhone with him." Once when he was
changing horses at an inn, a woman, bleeding a fowl at the door,
exclaimed: "Ha, the cursed monster! If I had him here, I'd plant my
knife into his throat like that!" The emperor, unknown to her, draws
near. "What did he do to you?" said he. "I had two sons," replied the
bereaved mother wrathfully, "two handsome boys, tall as towers. He
killed them for me in his battles."--"Their names will not perish in the
stars," said Napoleon sadly. "Why could I not fall like them? for they
died for their country on the field of glory."--"But who are you?"--"I
am the emperor."--"Ah!" The good woman fell upon her knees dismayed,
kissed his hands, begged his forgiveness, and all in tears--Here the
story is interrupted.

Wholly charming and altogether original is the tale of the little maiden
whom the boatmen name L'Anglore, and whom Jean Roche loves. The men have
named her so for fun. They knew her well, having seen her from earliest
childhood, half naked, paddling in the water along the shore, sunning
herself like the little lizard they call _anglore_. Now she had grown,
and eked out a poor living by seeking for gold in the sands brought down
by the Ardeche.

The little maid believed in the story of the Drac, a sort of merman,
that lived in the Rhone, and had power to fascinate the women who
ventured into the water. There was once a very widespread superstition
concerning this Protean creature; and the women washing in the river
often had a figure of the Drac, in the form of a lizard, carved upon the
piece of wood with which they beat the linen, as a sort of talisman
against his seduction. The mother of the Anglore had told her of his
wiles; and one story impressed her above all--the story of the young
woman who, fascinated by the Drac, lost her footing in the water and was
carried whirling down into the depths. At the end of seven years she
returned and told her tale. She had been seized by the Drac, and for
seven years he kept her to nurse his little Drac.

The Anglore was never afraid while seeking the specks of gold in the
sunlight. But at night it was different. A gem of poetry is the scene in
the sixth canto, full of witchery and charm, wherein the imagination of
the little maid, wandering out along