alady that came with one shock,
and passed from her with another. Nor, so far as can be ascertained at
the distant time at which I write, did the suspicions which the night of
the Escalade found in the bud survive it. Probably the Corraterie and
the neighbouring quarter, ay, and the whole city of Geneva, had for many
a week to come matter for gossip and to spare. It is certain, at any
rate, that whatever whispers were current in this house or that, no
tongue wagged openly against the favourites of the council, who were
also the favourites of the crowd. For Mere Royaume's act hit
marvellously the public fancy, and, passing from mouth to mouth, and
from generation to generation, is still the first, the best loved, and
the most picturesque of the legends of Geneva.

And Messer Blondel? Did he evade the penalty of his act? Ask any man in
the streets of Geneva, even to-day, and he will tell you the fate of
Philibert Blondel, Fourth Syndic. He will tell you how the magistrate
triumphed for a time, as he had triumphed in the council before, how he
closed the mouths of his accusers, how not once, but twice and thrice,
by the sheer force and skill of a man working in a medium which he
understood, he won his acquittal from his compeers. But though
punishment be slow to overtake, it does overtake at last; nor has the
world witnessed many instances more pertinent or more famous than that
of Messer Blondel. Strive as he might, tongues would wag within the
council, and without. Silence as he might Baudichon and Petitot, smaller
men would talk; and their talk persisted and grew, and was vigorous when
months and even years had passed. What the great did not know the small
knew or guessed, and fixed greedy eyes on the head of the man who had
dared to sell Geneva. The end came four years after the Escalade. To
conceal the old negotiation he committed a further crime, and being
betrayed by the tool he employed was seized and convicted. On the 1st
September, 1606, he lost his head on a scaffold erected before his own
house in the Bourg du Four.

The Merciers had at least one son--probably he was the eldest, for he
bore his father's name--who lived into middle life, and proved himself
their worthy descendant. For precisely fifty years after the date of
these events a poor woman of the name of Michee Chauderon was put to
death in Geneva, on a charge of sorcery; and among those--and they were
not few--who strove most manfully and most obstin