trees stuck in the ground which would not grow here though they
had flourished for a century elsewhere, before being uprooted to
gratify a king's caprice; on artificial lakes now gay with _caiques_
and gondolas where but a few years ago the frogs and eels had held
undisputed possession; on a palace which reared its new walls where
starving peasants' hovels had been not long since.

The holiday-makers were going home to their beds as all the clocks of
the city clanged out the hour of midnight; all were about to seek
their homes ere they commenced the new week--a week that to most of
them brought nothing but hard, griping toil, starvation, and a heavy
load of taxation imposed upon them by that king whom they stared at
and reverenced, and by his nobility.

Yet not quite all, either! For some there were who, as they streamed
across the Pont Neuf, or came in from the Charenton gate, or arrived
back from Versailles or Marly, broke off in solitary twos and threes
from the others and directed their footsteps toward the great _place_
in front of the Hotel de Ville--toward the _Place de Greve_! They,
these solitary ones, had no intention of seeking their homes and beds
that night--they could sleep long and well to-morrow night--instead
they meant to enjoy themselves in the _place_ until day broke, with
the anticipation of what the daybreak would bring. For at that hour
they knew they would see a man done to death upon the wheel; see limb
after limb broken until life was extinguished by the final _coup de
grace_.

As they neared the great open space some cast their eyes up at the
lights burning in the Hotel de Ville and muttered to each other,
wondering which room the man was in who would be led forth three hours
hence; what he was thinking of; if he was counting each quarter as it
sounded from tower and steeple; if--these speculations generally by
women in the fast-gathering crowd--there were any who loved him? If he
had a wife--a mother--a child? Any to mourn his loss?

"A traitor, they say," some whispered; "one who joined England against
France." "A spy," others murmured, "who betrayed Tourville to the
brutal islanders. Well, he deserves the dog's death! Let him endure
it."

The quarters boomed forth again; at half past twelve the executioner
and his assistants arrived in a cart. Ordinarily they came earlier
when they had a scaffold to erect and a block to place upon it. Now,
however, there was no block on which the man