Instead, there appeared a little Frenchman of the most refined and unusual appearance. The blue cloth of his coat set off the extreme paleness of a small but serene face and high round forehead. The hair, a beautiful silver grey which time only had powdered, was tied in a queue behind. The little gentleman’s hand was as thin and fine as a lady’s, his shoulders were narrow and slightly stooped, his eye was eloquent and benign. His dress was amazingly neat, but showed constant brushing and signs of the friendly repairing needle.
The whole impression was that of a man whom a whiff of wind would blow away; with the body of an ascetic and the simplicity of a child. The face had some particular sort of wisdom, difficult to define and impossible to imitate. He held in his hand a tiny cane of the sort carried at the court of Louis Quinze. Louis Capet himself had given it to him; and you might have had the life of the little gentleman, but not this cane with the tiny golden bust of his unhappy monarch.
He stood on the steps of the prison and looked serenely on the muttering, excited crowd.
“I fear there is a mistake,” said he, coughing a little into his fingers. “You do not seek me. I—I have no claim upon your kindness; I am only the Chevalier Orvilliers du Champsavoys de Beaumanoir.”
For a moment the mob had been stayed in amazement by this small, rare creature stepping from the doorway, like a porcelain coloured figure from some dusky wood in a painting by Claude. In the instant’s pause the Chevalier Orvilliers du Champsavoys de Beaumanoir took from his pocket a timepiece and glanced at it, then looked over the heads of the crowd towards the hooded sun, which now, a little, was showing its face again.
“It was due at eight, less seven minutes,” said he; “clear sun again was set for ten minutes past. It is now upon the stroke of the hour.”
He seemed in no way concerned with the swaying crowd before him—undoubtedly they wanted naught of him, and therefore he did not take their presence seriously; but, of an inquiring mind, he was absorbed in the eclipse.
“He’s a French sorcerer! He has the evil eye! Away with him to the sea!” shouted the fanatical preacher from the Pompe des Brigands.
“It’s a witch turned into a man!” cried a drunken woman from her window. “Give him the wheel of fire at the blacksmith’s forge.”
“That’s it! Gad’rabotin—the wheel of fire’ll turn him back to a hag again!”