I have passed fifteen years here in this cellar, without a fire in winter.
It is hard.
The poor, dear little shoe!
I have cried so much that the good God has heard me.
This night he has given my daughter back to me.
It is a miracle of the good God.
She was not dead.
You will not take her from me, I am sure.
If it were myself, I would say nothing; but she, a child of sixteen!
Leave her time to see the sun!
What has she done to you? nothing at all.
Nor have I.
If you did but know that she is all I have, that I am old, that she is a blessing which the Holy Virgin has sent to me!
And then, you are all so good!
You did not know that she was my daughter; but now you do know it.
Oh!
I love her!
Monsieur, the grand provost.
I would prefer a stab in my own vitals to a scratch on her finger!
You have the air of such a good lord!
What I have told you explains the matter, does it not?
Oh! if you have had a mother, monsiegneur! you are the captain, leave me my child!
Consider that I pray you on my knees, as one prays to Jesus Christ!
I ask nothing of any one; I am from Reims, gentlemen; I own a little field inherited from my uncle, Mahiet Pradon.
I am no beggar.
I wish nothing, but I do want my child! oh!
I want to keep my child!
The good God, who is the master, has not given her back to me for nothing!
The king! you say the king!
It would not cause him much pleasure to have my little daughter killed!
And then, the king is good! she is my daughter! she is my own daughter!
She belongs not to the king! she is not yours!
I want to go away! we want to go away! and when two women pass, one a mother and the other a daughter, one lets them go!
Let us pass! we belong in Reims.
Oh! you are very good, messieurs the sergeants, I love you all.
You will not take my dear little one, it is impossible!
It is utterly impossible, is it not?
My child, my child!”
We will not try to give an idea of her gestures, her tone, of the tears which she swallowed as she spoke, of the hands which she clasped and then wrung, of the heart-breaking smiles, of the swimming glances, of the groans, the sighs, the miserable and affecting cries which she mingled with her disordered, wild, and incoherent words.
When she became silent Tristan l’Hermite frowned, but it was to conceal a tear which welled up in his tiger’s eye.
He conquered this weakness, however, and said in a curt tone,—
“The king wills it.”
Then he bent down to the ear of Rennet Cousin, and said to him in a very low tone,—
“Make an end of it quickly!”
Possibly, the redoubtable provost felt his heart also failing him.
The executioner and the sergeants entered the cell.
The mother offered no resistance, only she dragged herself towards her daughter and threw herself bodily upon her.
The gypsy beheld the soldiers approach.
The horror of death reanimated her,—
“Mother!” she shrieked, in a tone of indescribable distress, “Mother! they are coming! defend me!”