“Good sirs,”said she, “messieurs the sergeants, one word. There is a thing I must tell you. This is my daughter, look you—my dear little child who was lost to me! Listen, ’tis quite a story. It may surprise you, but I know messieurs the sergeants well. They were always good to me in the days when the little urchins threw stones at me because I was a wanton. Look you; you will leave me my child when you know all! I was a poor wanton. The gipsies stole her from me—by the same token I have kept her shoe these fifteen years. Look, here it is. She had a foot like that. At Reims. La Chantefleurie! Rue Folle- Peine! Perhaps you knew of this? It was I. In your young days; then it was a merry time, and there were merry doings! You will have pity on me, won’t you, good sirs? The gipsies stole her, and hid her from me for fifteen years. I thought her dead. Picture to yourself, my good friends, that I thought her dead. I have passed fifteen years here, in this stone cave, without any fire in winter. That is hard. The poor, sweet little shoe! I cried so long to God that he heard me. You will not take her from me, I am sure. Even if ’twere me you wanted, I would not mind; but a child of sixteen! Leave her a little while longer to live in the sunshine! What has she done to you? Nothing at all. Nor I either. If you only knew—I have no one but her. I am old—this is a blessing sent me from the Holy Virgin! And then, you are all so good! you did not know that it was my daughter; but now you know. Oh, I love her! Monsieur the Chief Provost, I would rather have a stab in my body than a scratch on her little finger! You have the air of a kind gentleman! What I tell you now explains the whole matter, surely? Oh! if you have a mother, sir—you are the captain, leave me my child! See how I entreat you on my knees, as we pray to Jesus Christ! I ask not alms of any one. Sirs, I come from Reims; I have a little field from my uncle Mahiet Pradon. I am not a beggar. I want nothing—nothing but my child! Oh, I want to keep my child! The good God, who is master over all, has not given her back to me for nothing. The
King!—you say the King! It cannot give him much pleasure that they should kill my daughter! Besides, the King is good! She is my daughter; mine, not the King’s! She does not belong to him! I will go away! we will both go. After all, just two women passing along the road—a mother and her daughter; you let them go their way in peace! Let us go; we come from Reims. Oh, you are kind, messieurs the sergeants. I have nothing to say against you. You will not take my darling; it is not possible! Say it is not possible! My child! My child!”
We shall not attempt to convey any idea of her gestures, her accent, the tears that trickled over her lips as she spoke, her clasping, writhing hands, the heart-breaking smiles, the agonized looks, the sighs, the moans, the miserable and soul-stirring sobs she mingled with these frenzied, incoherent words. When she ceased, Tristan l’Hermite knit his brows, but it was to hide a tear that glistened in his tiger’s eye. He conquered this weakness, however, and said brusquely: “It is the King’s will.”
Then leaning down to Henriet Cousin’s ear, he whispered hurriedly, “Do thy business quickly.”It may be that the redoubtable provost felt his heart failing him—even his.
The hangman and the sergeant accordingly entered the cell. The mother made no attempt at resistance; she only dragged herself over to her daughter and threw herself distractedly upon her.
The girl saw the soldiers advancing towards her, and the horror of death revived her senses.
“Mother!”she cried in a tone of indescribable anguish; “oh, mother! they are coming! defend me!”
“Yes, yes, dear love, I am defending thee!”answered the mother in expiring tones; and clasping her frantically in her arms, she covered her face with kisses. To see them together on the ground, the mother thus protecting her child, was a sight to wring the stoniest heart.
Henriet Cousin took hold of the gipsy girl under her beautiful shoulders. At the touch of that hand she gave a little shuddering cry and swooned. The executioner, from whose eyes big tears were dropping, would have carried her away, and sought to unclasp the mother’s arms, which were tightly coiled about her daughter’s waist, but she held on to her child with such an iron grasp that he found it utterly impossible to separate them. He therefore had to drag the girl out of the cell, and the mother along with her. The mother’s eyes, too, were closed.