back to your army without me. I cannot leave my father now. Save yourself alone, and if — and if you take the city, and I am alive, then we shall be united. If you do not take the city, then, if my father lives or dies, I will come to you. Of this be sure, that I shall never live to be the wife of any other man wife or aught else. You know me. You know all, you trust me, and, my love, my dear husband, we must part once more. Go, go, and save yourself, keep your life safe for my sake, and may God in heaven, may God”.

Here she broke off and started back from my embrace, staring hard a moment over my shoulder; then her face became deadly pale, and she fell back unconscious. Supporting her, I turned round, and there, inside the door, with his back to it, was Doltaire. There was a devilish smile on his face, as wicked a look as I ever saw on any man. I laid Alixe down on a sofa without a word, and faced him again.

"As many coats as Joseph's coat had colors," he said. "And for once disguised as an honest man - well, well!" "Beast — I know you!" I hissed, and I whipped out my short sword.

"It needs no daring," he said nonchalantly.

"You shall put him back in his place." "Come to me to-morrow morning, dear madame."

"I tell you he must be put back, Monsieur Doltaire."

"Once you called me Tinoir," he said meaningly, mockingly.

Without a word she caught from her cloak a dagger and struck him in the breast, though he threw up his hand and partly diverted the blow. Without a cry he half swung round, and sank, face forward, against the couch where Alixe lay.

I saw him feebly, blindly, catch her hand and kiss it; then he fell back. Stooping beside Doltaire, I felt his heart. He was alive. Madame Cournal now knelt beside him, staring at him as in a kind of dream. I left the room quickly, and met the Sisters of Mercy in the hall. They had heard the noise, and were coming to Alixe. I bade them care for her. Passing rapidly through

"Come, then," he answered, and stepped away from the door, drawing his sword, "since you will have it here. But if I kill you, as I intend”—

He smiled detestably, and motioned towards the couch, then turned to the door again as if to lock it. I stepped between, my sword at guard. At that the door opened. A woman came in quickly, and closed it behind her. She passed me, and faced Doltaire.

It was Madame Cournal. She was most pale, and there was a peculiar wildness in her eyes.

household what had occurred, bade him send for Bigot, and then made for my own safety. Alixe was safe for a time, at least, — thank God, perhaps forever, - from the approaches of Monsieur Doltaire. As I sped through the streets, I could not help but think of how he had kissed her hand as he fell, and I knew by this act, at such a time, that in very truth he loved her after his fashion.

I came soon to the St. John's Gate, for I had the countersign from Gabord, and, dressed as I was, I had no difficulty in passing. Outside I saw a small cavalcade arriving from Beauport way. I

drew back and let it pass me, and then I saw that it was soldiers bearing the Seigneur Duvarney to the Intendance.

An hour afterwards, having passed the sentries, I stood on a lonely point of the shore of Lower Town, and, seeing no one near, I slid into the water. As I did so I heard a challenge behind me, and when I made no answer there came a shot, another, and another; for it was

thought, I doubt not, that I was a deserter. I was hit in the shoulder, and had to swim with one arm; but though boats were put out, I managed to evade them and to get within hail of our fleet. Challenged there, I answered with my name. A boat shot out from among the ships, and soon I was hauled into it by Clark himself; and that night I rested safe upon the Terror of France.

Gilbert Parker.

As far as I have ever seen provincial France, it appears to be perpetually en fête. Religiously or patriotically, it is always celebrating something; and it does so in a splendid whole-hearted fashion, concentrating all the energy of a town into a few days or a few hours of ardent demonstration. Les fêtes religieuses are without doubt the most charming and picturesque; and the smaller the place, the more curious and timehonored the observances. It is wonderful, too, to note the resources of even the poorest community. Auray, with its few straggling streets, is little better than a village; yet here, on the Fête du Sacré Cœur, I saw a procession so beautiful and so admirably organized that it would have done credit to any city of France. Scores of clerics and hundreds of weather- beaten men and women moved slowly through the narrow lanes, or knelt before the rude altars that had been erected at every turning. Not a house in Auray that had not been hung with linen sheets; not a rood of ground that was not strewn with flowers and fresh green leaves. Bands of little girls, dressed in blue and white, surrounded the statue of the Madonna, and the crimson banner of the Sacred Heart was borne by tiny boys, with red sashes around their waists and wreaths of red

roses on their curly heads, looking absurdly like Bonfigli's flower-crowned angels. One solemn child personated the infant St. John. He wore a scanty goatskin, and no more. A toy lamb, white and woolly, was tucked under his arm, and a slender cross grasped in his baby hand. By his side walked an equally youthful Jeanne d'Arc, attired in a blue spangled skirt and a steel breastplate, with a helmet, a nodding plume, a drawn sword, and a pair of gauzy wings, thus indicating that approaching beatification which is the ardent desire of every French Catholic.

"Notre mère, la France, est de Jeanne la fille,"

and she is to be congratulated on so blithely forgetting the unfilial nature of her conduct. At every altar benediction was given to the kneeling throng, and a regiment of boys beat their drums and sounded their trumpets shrilly to warn those who were too far away to see that the sacred moment had come. It seemed incredible that so small a place could have supplied so many people, until I remembered what an American is wont to forget, that in Auray there were no two ways of thinking. Spectators, affected or disaffected, there were none. Everybody old enough and strong enough. to walk joined in the procession; just

as everybody at Lourdes joined in the great procession of the Fête Dieu, when the hundreds were multiplied to thousands, when the mountain side at dusk seemed on fire with myriads of twinkling tapers, and the pilgrim chant, plaintive, monotonous, and unmusical, was borne by the night winds far away over the quiet valley of the Gave.

On these occasions I have been grateful to the happy accident, or design, that made me a participant in such scenes. But there have been other days when provincial towns en fête meant the acme of discomfort for wearied travelers. It was no especial grievance, indeed, that Compiègne should continue to celebrate the 14th of July long after it had merged into the 15th, by playing martial airs, and firing off guns directly under my bedroom window. I felt truly that I should have been but little better off elsewhere; for there is not a corner of France, nor a single French dependency, that does not go mad annually with delight because a rabble destroyed one of the finest fortresses in Europe. But it did seem hard that we should reach Amiens just when the combined attractions of the races and a fair had filled that quiet spot with tumult and commotion. Amiens is not a town that takes kindly to excitement. It is contemplative in character, and boisterous gayety sits uneasily upon its tranquil streets. Even the landlady of our very comfortable hotel appeared to recognize and deplore the incongruity of the situation. Her house was full to overflowing; her dining-room could not hold its famished guests; yet, instead of rejoicing, she bewailed the hungry crowds who had wrecked the harmony of her well-ordered inn.

"If madame had only come two days ago," she protested, "madame would then have seen Amiens at its best; and, moreover, she would have been properly waited on. My servants are trained, they are attentive, they are polite, they

would have taken care that madame had everything she required. But now! What, then, does madame think of this so sad disorder?"

negro

waiters to

Madame assured her she thought the servants were doing all that could be required of mortal men; and indeed, these nimble creatures fairly flew from guest to guest, and from room to room. I never saw one of them even lapse into a walk. I tried to describe to her the behavior of domestics in our own land, recalling to memory a sudden invasion of one of the Yellowstone Park hotels by a band of famished tourists, — their weary waiting, their humble attitude, their meek appeals for food, and the stolid indifference of the their most urgent needs. But this imperious little Frenchwoman merely held up her hands in horror at such anarchical conduct. A mob of communists engaged in demolishing the cathedral of Amiens would have seemed less terrible to her than a mob of servants refusing to wait swiftly upon hungry travelers. She was so serious in her anxiety for our comfort that her mind appeared visibly relieved when, on the second day, we decided that we too were weary of noise and excitement, and would move on that afternoon to Douai. There, at least, we told ourselves, we should find the drowsy quiet we desired. The image of the dull old town which we had never rose up alluringly before us. We pictured even the station, tranquil and empty like so many stations in rural France, with a leisurely little engine sauntering in occasionally, and a solitary porter roused from his nap, and coming forward, surprised but smiling, to handle our numerous bags. These pretty fancies soothed our nerves and beguiled our idleness until the three hours' trip was over, and Douai was reached at last. Douai! Yes; but Douai in a state of apparent frenzy, with a surging crowd whose uproar could be heard above our engine's shriek, hundreds of people

seen

----

rushing hither and thither, climbing into cars, clamoring over friends, laughing, shouting, blowing trumpets, and behaving generally in a fashion which made Amiens silent by comparison. For one moment we stood, stunned by the noise and confusion; and then the horrid truth forced itself upon our unwilling minds: Douai was en fête.

We made our way through the throng of people into the square outside the station, and took counsel briefly with one another. We were tired, we were hungry, and it was growing late; but should we ignore these melancholy conditions, and push bravely on for Lille? Lille, says Baedeker, has "two hundred thousand inhabitants," and cities of that size have grown too big for play. We thought of the discomforts which probably awaited us at Douai, in a meagre inn crowded with noisy bourgeois, and were turning resolutely back, when suddenly there came the sound of drums playing a gay anď martial air, and in another minute, surrounded by a clamorous mob, the Sire de Gayant and his family moved slowly into sight.

Thirty feet high was the Sire de Gayant, and his nodding plumes overtopped the humble roofs by which he passed. His steel breastplate glittered in the evening sun; his mighty mace looked like a May-pole; his countenance was grave and stern. The human pygmies by his side betrayed their insignificance at every step. They ran backward and forward, making all the foolish noise they could. They rode on hobby-horses. They played ridiculous antics. They were but children, after all, gamboling irresponsibly at the feet of their own Titanic toy. Behind the Sire de Gayant came his wife, in brocaded gown, with imposing farthingale and stomacher. Pearls wreathed her hair and fell upon her massive bosom. Earrings a handbreadth in size hung from her ears, and a fan as big as a fire-screen was held lightly by a silver chain. Like Lady Corysande,

"her approaching mien was full of majesty;" yet she looked affable and condescending, too, as befitted a dame of parts and noble birth. Her children manifested in their bearing more of pride and less of dignity. There was even something theatrical in the velvet cap and swinging cloak of her only son; and Mademoiselle Gayant held her head erect in conscious complacency, while her long brown ringlets fluttered in the breeze. "Of course the village girls Who envy me my curls," she seemed to murmur as she passed stiffly by.

66

Happily, however, there was still another member of this ancient family, more popular and more well beloved than all the rest, Mademoiselle Thérèse, "la petite Binbin," who for two hundred years has been the friend and idol of every child in Douai. A sprightly and attractive little girl was Mademoiselle Thérèse, barely eight feet high, and wearing a round cap and spotless pinafore. In her hand she carried a paper windmill, that antique Douai toy with which we see the angels and the Holy Innocents amusing themselves in Bellegambe's beautiful old picture, the Altarpiece of Anchin. She ran hither and thither with uncertain footsteps, pausing now and then to curtsy prettily to some admiring friends in a doorway; and whenever the pressure of the crowd stopped her progress, the little children clamored to be held up in their fathers' arms to kiss her round, smooth cheeks. One by one they were lifted in the air, and one by one I saw them put their arms around la Binbin's neck, and embrace her so heartily that I wondered how she kept herself clean and uncrumpled amid these manifold caresses. she went by, the last of that strange procession, we moved after her, without another thought of Lille and its comfortable hotels. Comfort, forsooth! Were we not back in the fifteenth century, when comfort had still to be invented?

As

Was that not the Song of Gayant which the drums were beating so gayly? And who yet ever turned their backs upon Douai when the famous Ranz des Douaisiens was ringing triumphantly in their ears?

For this little French town, smaller than many a ten-year-old city in the West, has an ancient and honorable past; and her martial deeds have been written down on more than one page of her country's history. The Fête de Gayant is old; so old that its origin has been lost in an obscurity which a number of industrious writers have tried in vain to penetrate.

pared to defeat the crafty assailant of Douai. At midnight he appeared by the bedside of the monk whose duty it was to ring the great bells of St. Amé, and bade him arise and call the brethren to matins. The monk, failing to recognize the august character of his visitor, protested drowsily that it was too early, and that, after the fatigue and lengthy devotions of the feast, it would be but humanity to allow the monastery an extra hour of slumber. St. Maurand, however, insisted so sternly and so urgently that the poor lay brother, seeing no other way to rid himself of importunity, arose, stumbled into the belfry, and laid

sais rien.

Ce que c'est que Gayant? Nul ne le sait en
Flandre."

The popular belief is that a knight of gigantic size fought valorously in behalf of Douai when the city, spent and crippled, made her splendid defense against Louis XI., and that his name is still preserved with gratitude by the people whom he helped to save. Certain it is that the fête dates from 1479, the year that Louis was repulsed; and whether or not a real Gayant ever stood upon the walls, there is little doubt that the procession celebrates that hard-won victory. But the Church has not been backward in claiming the hero for her own, and identifying him with St. Maurand, the blessed patron of Douai. St. Maurand, it is said, fought for the welfare of his town as St. Iago fought for the glory of Spain; and there is a charming legend to show how keenly he watched over the people who trusted to his care. In 1556, on the night following the feast of the Epiphany, Admiral Coligny planned to surprise the city, which, ignorant of its danger, lay sleeping at the mercy of its foe. But just as St. George, St. Mark, and St. Nicholas aroused the old fisherman, and went out into the storm to do battle with demons for the safety of Venice, so St. Maurand pre

hardly had he given them the first faint pull when, with a mighty vibration, the bells swung to and fro, as though spirits were hurling them through the air. So furiously were they tossed that the brazen clangor of their tongues rang out into the night with an intensity of menace that awoke every man'in Douai to a swift recognition of his peril. Soldiers sprang to arms; citizens swarmed out of their comfortable homes; and while the bells still pealed forth their terrible summons, those who were first at the defenses saw for one instant the blessed St. Maurand standing in shining armor on the ramparts, guarding the city of his adoption as St. Michael guards the hidden gates of paradise.

So the Church will have it that the knight Gayant is no other than the holy son of Adalbald; and as for Madame Gayant and her family, who seem like a questionable incumbrance upon saintship, it is clearly proved that Gayant had neither wife nor child until 1665, when the good people of Douai abruptly ended his cheerful days of celibacy. Indeed, there are historians so lost to all sense of honor and propriety as to insist that this beloved Titan owes his origin neither to Flemish heroism nor to the guardianship of saints, but to the efforts made by the Spanish conquerors of