Bridge and Isle of France, and once more across a
bridge--that of Notre Dame--where they saw the Quai Le Pelletier on the
other side lined with a black sea of people. At least a quarter of the
population of Paris were crammed together within the available space
upon the quays and the neighbouring streets along the Seine, from the
towered Chatelet--court-house and prison--some distance below, to the
Place de Greve, some distance above, in front of the Hotel de Ville. A
line of blue-coated, white-gaitered soldiers on each side kept the space
clear down the centre.

The people were looking forward to the spectacle of the morning with
intense delight.

Meanwhile at the prison doors of the Chatelet the three poor wretches of
prisoners were forced into a cart by gendarmes in the sight of the
multitude. A man sat awaiting them in the cart, curled, powdered,
dressed; and perfumed with foppish elegance, and his every motion made
with a dainty sense of distinction. He was the people's hero--the public
executioner. He took in his hands the ends of the rope which hung from
the necks of his victims. Another figure mounted the cart behind them.
It was a priest, who knelt, bent his head, and offered to each of them
the crucifix; and the cart then proceeded slowly along the soldier-lined
streets, accompanied by half a dozen guards carrying their muskets on
their shoulders, bayonetted.

The emotions meanwhile of the condemned were told in their bearing.
Young Hugues de la Tour stood up, and scornfully refusing the crucifix
of the priest, looked around upon the scene with an air of
irreconcilable indignation. His companions, Bec and Caron, the men who
in the cave had spoken of themselves as ruined, the one by taxes, the
other by the tithe, were more abject, and clutched the crucifix in
despair.

Comments were shouted freely at the victims. Applause greeted the
demeanour of la Tour, rough raillery the terror of his companions.

After this manner they jolted painfully along the cobbled paving, down
through the swaying crowd towards the Place de Greve. Though the
distance was not perhaps more than a couple of hundred yards the poor
men underwent ages of tension. When they came to the Quai Le Pelletier,
Hugues heard, as in a dream, a startling stentorian, familiar cry--

"Vive the Galley!"

His bloodshot eyes strained towards the place whence it came, and once
more a voice, this time the shriek of a woman, pierced the air--

"Vive