CONTENTS.

ChapterPage
I. The Body of a Damned Person[ 7]
II. The Shop of Two Shoes[ 20]
III. Mademoiselle’s Slippers[ 31]
IV. Rosaline[ 44]
V. The Cobbler’s Guest[ 52]
VI. A Military Suitor[ 64]
VII. A String of Trout[ 75]
VIII. Babet Visits the Cobbler[ 86]
IX. Charlot Burns a Candle[ 97]
X. A Dangerous Suit[ 106]
XI. François Makes a Pledge[ 119]
XII. The Finger of Fate[ 130]
XIII. The Battle Hymn[ 140]
XIV. “And All for Love�[ 151]
XV. The Temptation of le Bossu[ 164]
XVI. A Brief Delay[ 178]
XVII. M. de Baudri’s Terms[ 189]
XVIII. Rosaline’s Humble Friends[ 203]
XIX. “Mortis Portis Fractis!�[ 213]
XX. The Cobbler’s Faith[ 225]
XXI. In the Woods of St. Cyr[ 237]
XXII. The Old Windmill[ 249]
XXIII. The Cobbler’s Bargain[ 260]
XXIV. “O Death, Where Is Thy Sting?� [ 269]
XXV. The Ship at Sea[ 275]

The Cobbler of Nîmes

CHAPTER I
THE BODY OF A DAMNED PERSON

It was the month of June, 1703, and about noontide on the last day of the week. The fair in the market-place at Nîmes was therefore at its height. A juggler was swallowing a sword in the midst of an admiring circle. Mademoiselle Héloïse, the danseuse, was walking the tight-rope near at hand, and the pick-pockets were plying their trade profitably on the outskirts of the throng. There was a dancing bear, and beyond him—a rival attraction—a monkey in scarlet breeches, with a blouse or camisole over them. The little creature’s antics were hailed with shouts of derisive laughter and cries of “Camisard!� “Barbet!� “Huguenot!� the monkey’s little blouse being an unmistakable caricature of the dress of the Camisards. It therefore behooved the wise to laugh, and they did, and that loudly,—though many a heart was in secret sympathy with the Huguenot rebels of the Cévennes; but were they not in Nîmes? And the Intendant Bâville was there, and the dragoons of King Louis XIV.; so it was that the monkey gathered many a half-crown, and sous and deniers in profusion, in his little cap, and carried them—chattering—to the showman. It was a motley throng: broad, red-faced market-women, old crones with bearded lip and toothless gums, little gamins of the market with prematurely aged faces, countrymen who glanced askance at the monkey while they laughed, pretty peasant girls who had sold their eggs and their poultry, and come to spend their newly acquired riches in ribbons and trinkets, and to have their fortunes told by the old gypsy in the yellow pavilion. Some strolling musicians were playing a popular air, two drunken men were fighting, and a busy tradesman was selling his wares near the entrance of a tent that was manifestly the centre of attraction. It was of white canvas and decorated with numerous images of the devil,—a black figure with horns, hoofs, and tail, engaged in casting another person into the flames; the whole being more startling than artistic. At the door of this tent was a man mounted on a barrel, and dressed fantastically in black, with a repetition of the devils and flames, in red and yellow, around the edge of his long gown, which flapped about a pair of thin legs, set squarely in the centre of two long, schooner-shaped feet. This person, whose face was gross and dull rather than malicious, kept calling his invitation and bowing low as each new visitor dropped a half-crown into the box fastened on the front of the barrel beneath his feet.

“Messieurs et mesdames!� he cried, “only a half-crown to see the body of a damned person!�

He raised his voice almost to a scream, to be heard in the babel of tongues; he clapped his hands to attract notice; he swayed to and fro on his barrel.

“Here is the body of a damned person!� he shouted. “Dieu! what an opportunity for the good of your soul! Too much, madame?� he said to a fishwife who grumbled at the price, “too much! ’Tis a chance in a thousand! The body came from the Tour de Constance! Madame will have her money’s worth.�