‘Let us go across and look at Notre Dame,’ said the husband, for whom the old church had an inexhaustible charm.
‘Bah!’ cried the wife. ‘What a fancy you have for staring at old stones!’
They crossed the bridge, and sauntered to the front of the noble old cathedral, where already the hand of improvement was beginning to clear away the houses that surrounded and overshadowed its beauty. Jack Chicot was looking up at the glorious western door, built by Philip Augustus, thickly wrought with fleurs-de-lys, where in days of old had appeared the sculptured images of all the kings of Judah, shrined in niches of stonework, as delicate as lace or spring foliage. His wife’s eyes roved right and left, and all around, seeking some diversion for a mind prone to weariness when not stimulated by amusement or dissipation.
‘See, my friend,’ she cried suddenly, clutching her husband’s arm. ‘There is something! Look, what a crowd of people. Is it a procession or an accident?’
‘An accident, I think,’ answered Chicot, looking down the street facing them, along which a closely-packed crowd was hastening, rolling towards them like a mighty wave of black water. ‘We had better get out of the way.’
‘But, no,’ cried the wife eagerly. ‘If there is something to see, let us see it. Life is not too full of distractions.’
‘It may be something unpleasant,’ suggested Jack. ‘I am afraid they are carrying some poor creature to the Morgue.’
‘That matters nothing. We may as well see.’
So they waited, and fell in among the hurrying crowd, and heard many voices discussing the thing that had happened, every voice offering a different version of the same ghastly story.
A man had been run over on the Boulevard—a seafaring man from the provinces—knocked down by the horses of a huge wagon. The horses had kicked him, the wheels had gone over his body. ‘He was dead when they picked him up,’ said one. ‘No, he spoke, and hardly seemed conscious he was hurt,’ said another. ‘He died while they were waiting for the brancard on which to carry him to the hospital,’ said a third.