Then Marguerite and the Duchesse de Nevers, seeing that, dying as they were, they were still struggling to destroy each other, hastened to them, followed by the captain of the guards; but before they could reach them the combatants' hands unloosened, their eyes closed, and letting go their grasp of their weapons they stiffened in what seemed like their final agony. A wide stream of blood bubbled round them.
"Oh, brave, brave La Mole!" cried Marguerite, unable any longer to repress her admiration. "Ah! pardon me a thousand times for having a moment doubted your courage."
And her eyes filled with tears.
"Alas! alas!" murmured the duchess, "gallant Annibal. Did you ever see two such intrepid lions, madame?"
And she sobbed aloud.
"Heavens! what ugly thrusts," said the captain, endeavoring to stanch the streams of blood. "Holá! you, there, come here as quickly as you can—here, I say"—
He addressed a man who, seated on a kind of tumbril or cart painted red, appeared in the evening mist singing this old song, which had doubtless been suggested to him by the miracle of the Cemetery of the Innocents:
| "Bel aubespin fleurissant |
| Verdissant, |
| Le long de ce beau rivage, |
| Tu es vétu, jusqu'au bas |
| Des longs bras |
| D'une lambrusche sauvage. |
| "Le chantre rossignolet, |
| Nouvelet, |
| Courtisant sa bien-aimée |
| Pour ses amours alléger |
| Vient loger |
| Tous les ans sous ta ramée. |
| "Or, vis, gentil aubespin |
| Vis sans fin; |
| Vis, sans que jamais tonnerre, |
| Ou la cognée, ou les vents |
| Ou le temps |
| Te puissent ruer par.". . .[5] |
"Holá! hé!" shouted the captain a second time, "come when you are called. Don't you see that these gentlemen need help?"
The carter, whose repulsive exterior and coarse face formed a singular contrast with the sweet and sylvan song we have just quoted, stopped his horse, got out, and bending over the two bodies said: