BY THE SAME AUTHOR
One of the noble families of Lorraine has a curious crest. It represents a big black bear in an iron cage, and recalls the legend as to the founding of the fortunes of the house, which runs somewhat in this way.
Several centuries ago there lived in the city of Nancy a little Savoyard named Michel, whose lot was certainly about as hard as a ten-year-old boy could endure without giving up life altogether. He was a homeless orphan, dependent entirely upon the alms of the charitable, for which he begged through the stony streets. A more pitiable appearance than he presented could scarcely be imagined. Privation and hunger had blanched his cheeks and shrunken his form. With his haggard face, half hidden by long disordered locks of a slightly reddish tinge, his bones showing through the thin ragged garments from which the sun and rain had taken all colour, he wearily dragged himself barefoot from door to door, meeting with many a harsh repulse, and but few kindly responses to his appeals.
His eyes alone showed any sign of spirit. They were of a deep blue tint, and in spite of his sufferings, held a strange sparkle that sometimes startled those who caught it.
At night, in company with some other street arabs of his own age, he found shelter in a wretched cellar kept by a villainous old hag, who made her lodgers pay nearly all they had, with such difficulty, begged during the day, for the privilege of sleeping upon mouldy straw pallets. The miserable place was draughty, damp and pestilential, but it was the only lodging the poor boys could afford, and offered at least some protection from the merciless cold of winter.
In that cellar there would only too often be heard through the hours of darkness heart-breaking sobs that refused to be suppressed, or the piteous moan, "I am so hungry, oh, I am so hungry!"
And sometimes in the morning, when the old hag would seek to clear her cellar of its occupants, screaming at them and striking them with her broom, there would be one who paid no heed to either screams or blows, but remained motionless on his pallet, for he had passed into the sleep that knows no waking.
Each day Michel grew paler, thinner, feebler, a cruel cough racking his slender frame as he shivered in his rags and tatters. Every limb ached, and sometimes it seemed to him as if he must lie down on the snow to die.
Late one afternoon, crouched in the corner of the doorway of the Duke's palace, and waiting for some one to pass by of whom he might beg alms, he wept bitterly. He was starving and freezing, but nothing came his way; yet to return to the cellar he did not dare. The old hag had a flinty heart which nothing save money could soften, and he was without a sou.
Overcome with despair at his condition, and horror at the thought of spending the night in the street, he fell on his knees and, lifting his tear-filled eyes to the darkening sky, put forth this pathetic prayer: