“You do not know the full import of what I have told you, Jacques.”
The old peasant sobered instantly.
“What’s that?”
“Then you have never heard of the Merovingian statute which provides that the headsman may marry a condemned woman, if he is able and willing, and thereby save her life?”
“Ah! Ah! Ah!” came from Jacques, his small eyes opening and shutting with lightning rapidity. “Thus it proceeds, eh? M. le Headsman surrenders to the charms of the beautiful Mlle. Bonacieux. He plans to take her to wife. Is not the situation amusing?”
Suddenly he shook the arm of the old Abbé.
“But it can not be, Abbé Kérouec,” he exclaimed vociferously. “I knew the worthy M. Capeluche at Fontainebleau. He was a friend of mine, and the father of the headsman in Peptonneau, and he confided in me that on a certain occasion a lady-in-waiting one day brought her child to the dwelling in red, whereupon the Capeluche sword rattled furiously in its closet, which meant, of an absolute surety, that the child, unless its neck was pricked by the point of the sword, would some day die by that sword. That woman bore the name of Bonacieux, and now, after eighteen years, old Jacques lives to see Mlle. Bonacieux, the child grown to womanhood, awaiting her death under the famous sword in the hands of a Capeluche.”
Jacques paused for breath. The old Abbé had endeavored to follow the harangue of the peasant.
“Understand? A portent!” shouted Jacques, in desperation. “Mlle. Bonacieux is to die tonight by the sword of the headsman, Capeluche.”
“Nay! Nay! Jacques,” in turn exclaimed the Abbé. “I know not of what you prate, save that it be Godless. But there will be a wedding in Peptonneau this eve, and no woman will die by the hand of Capeluche.”