The crowd outside the Bastille had begun to form even before the dawn of the gloomy November day which was to witness the execution of the four principal conspirators in the Norman plot; the four conspirators whom alone, of many others of high and low degree, it had been thought advisable to bring to trial. This was because, amongst those others, were names of such importance that, coupled with the name of De Beaurepaire, they would have revealed the existence of so deep-rooted a conspiracy against France and the King as to absolutely threaten the existence of France as a monarchy, as well as the existence of Le Roi Soleil. Therefore, since justice was now to be done upon those four, it had been deemed the highest policy to ignore all others concerned, and thus veil in obscurity the wide-spreading roots of the wicked scheme.

By mid-day the crowd was so augmented that one-eighth of the population of Paris was calculated to be present; the mass of people was so closely wedged that any movement had become impossible. If women fainted from the pressure they were subjected to, they had to remain standing insensible or be supported by others until they recovered, since there was not room for them to fall to the ground. If infants in arms--of which, as always at any public "spectacle," many had been brought--fell or were dropped, it was in most cases impossible to recover them: several old as well as very young persons were trampled to death, and more than one birth took place amongst that crowd.

And still the mob continued to swell and increase until three o'clock, while some hundreds of persons helped to add farther to it long after the "spectacle" was over.

In front of the great door of the prison, above which was carved a bas-relief representing two slaves manacled together, a long scaffold had been erected on which were placed three blocks. Some short distance off was a small movable rostrum, or smaller scaffold, above which was reared a gallows with the rope hanging loosely from it. On this rostrum Van den Enden would later take his stand until, the rope being fastened tightly round his neck, the rostrum would be pushed from under his feet and he would be left hanging. Still a farther distance off was a brazier, the fire in which was not yet ignited. At three o'clock it would be lit and, into it, a huge bundle of papers would be cast. These papers were those which had been found in La Truaumont's possession after death, and contained not only innumerable letters and other documents dealing with the plot, but also his birth certificate and his parchment commissions and brevets. As far as was possible his memory, as well as the records of his association with the conspiracy, were to be effaced for ever.

Early in the morning three sides of a square had been formed round the scaffolds and the brazier--the prison wall and the great door of the prison making the fourth side--by a large body of troops. These troops consisted of three lines, the innermost one, which was composed of several companies of the Regiment de Rouen, being so placed owing partly to the fact that the regiment happened at the moment to be quartered in Paris, and partly because it was thought well that its men should witness what had befallen those who had endeavoured to stir up rebellion in the particular province to which it belonged.

Behind these soldiers were those of the Garde du Corps du Roi under the command of De Brissac who, from dawn, had sat his horse statue-like. Behind this were the Mousquetaires, both black and grey.

"How slowly that clock moves," a sandy-haired, good-looking girl of the people said as, at last, the clock of the Bastille struck two and the final hour of waiting was at hand. "Have you ever seen this handsome Prince who is to die?" she asked, turning to a big, brawny man who stood by her side.

"Ay, often," the man, who was totally unknown to the girl, replied, looking down at her. "Often. I was a soldier myself until six months ago. And in the Garde du Corps. Are you an admirer of handsome men?"

"I have heard so much of his beauty. And of his loves. They say all the aristocratic women loved him."

"Vertu dieu!" the man said with a laugh; "I wonder then that he did not disfigure himself. One can be fed too full on love as well as other things, ma belle," he added with a hoarse laugh, while recalling perhaps some of his own galanteries de caserne.

"There is one who dies with him to-day," a dark, pale woman struck in now, "whom they say he loved passing well, as she him. Dieu! what is sweeter than to die with those we love!"

"To live for them, bonne femme," the soldier replied, still jeeringly. Then, seeing that this woman's face had clouded with a look of pain, he said in a gentler voice, "Ah! pardon. I have not wounded you?"

"Nay. Not much. But I have loved and been left behind. I would I might have gone too."

"They say he and the woman and the old Jew who is to hang," a cripple exclaimed, "sought to kill the King. Oh-é! Oh-é!" the creature grunted, "I would I were tall enough to see the Jew swinging. Mon brave," looking up at the ex-soldier, "will you not lift me to your shoulder when they come out?"

"Ay! will I, and fling you at the Jew's head afterwards. If you miss him mayhap you will fall into the brazier. And, so, an end to you."

"Is there a brazier! And for the Jew! Oh! Oh! Oh! To burn him all up. Oh! Oh!" and the cripple, in his efforts to caper about, trod so on his neighbours' feet that they kicked and cuffed him till he was almost senseless.

"The Dutch fleet was off Havre a week ago," one old man remarked to another in solemn, almost awestruck, whispers. "Ah! if the Normans had been ready. If the enemy had landed. If France had been invaded. Oh, mon Dieu!"

"Pschut!" exclaimed the other old man, one of different mettle from his companion. "The Normans ready! Fichtre pour les Normans! There were none who had the power to cause a single village to rise. France might have slept in peace."

"Attention!" rang out the voice of the officer in command of the Mousquetaires a little while later, and, as it did so, the crowd roared like so many beasts of prey; then, gradually, yet quickly, too, the roar subsided into a deep, hoarse murmur, and an indescribable tremor, or movement, passed through the thousands present.

For, now, the great bell of the Bastille that had, in days past, so often sounded the tocsin over St. Antoine--and was so often to sound it again in days to come--was tolling slowly: the huge doors were open, they were coming forth.

Ahead of all walked some bareheaded and barefooted Carmelites chanting the Salve Regina: following them, the Governor of the Bastille and the Lieutenant du Roi marched side by side. Next, came the headsman and his assistants, masked, the former carrying his axe over his shoulder.

Behind them the condemned ones came forth. First, with the Père Bourdaloue by his side, appeared De Beaurepaire, superb and stately, his head bare. He was dressed all in black velvet but, underneath his outer coat might be caught the gleam of his handsome justaucorps. Yet, noble as his presence was, there was missing from his face to-day the look of arrogance and haughty contempt that had hitherto been the one disfigurement of his manly beauty. Now, he walked calmly and solemnly and resigned, as one might walk who followed another to his grave instead of as one who, with every step he took, drew nearer to his own.

Behind him came the woman he loved, the woman who loved him so, the woman whose eyes were fixed upon him as he preceded her and who, it seemed to those who were in a position to observe her, would have drawn closer to him had it been possible.

But still there were the others. Fleur de Mai, big, stalwart, burly, marching with a firm, well-assured step; with an eye that seemed to roam in pride and satisfaction over the vast crowd that was assembled there to see them die; with lips pursed out as though in contempt of what he was about to suffer.

Last of all came Van den Enden, supported, almost dragged along, between two jailers, and muttering as he went: "An old man. So old. So old and feeble!"

That the crowd should make its comments even at such a moment of supreme solemnity was not to be doubted, and that those comments should come principally from the female portion of it was equally certain. The men, excepting only those of the more base and contemptible kind, were mostly silent while, perhaps, feeling within their hearts some satisfaction that the two principal sufferers of their own sex were representing that sex so fearlessly.

From the women there issued, however,............