restless hand and the craving air. “The name of that prisoner was

Damiens, and it was all done in open day, in the open streets of

this city of Paris; and nothing was more noticed in the vast

concourse that saw it done, than the crowd of ladies of quality and

fashion, who were full of eager attention to the lastto the last.

Jacques, prolonged until nightfall, when he had lost two legs and

an arm, and still breathed! And it was donewhy, how old are

you?”

“Thirty-five,” said the mender of roads, who looked sixty.

“It was done when you were more than ten years old; you might

have seen it.”

“Enough!” said Defarge, with grim impatience. “Long live the

Devil! Go on.”

“Well! Some whisper this, some whisper that; they speak of

nothing else; even the fountain appears to fall to that tune. At

length, on Sunday night when all the village is asleep, come

soldiers, winding down from the prison, and their guns ring on the

stones of the little street. Workmen dig, workmen hammer,

soldiers laugh and sing; in the morning, by the fountain, there is

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raised a gallows forty feet high, poisoning the water.”

The mender of roads looked through rather than at the low

ceiling, and pointed as if he saw the gallows somewhere in the sky.

“All work is stopped, all assemble there, nobody leads the cows

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