But it was whispered in the crowd that the last comers were the Prince de Ligne, the Duke de Rohan, and a Crouy, the last scion of the illustrious race of Arpad, which traced its origin to Attila, and put forth more legitimate rights to the crown of Hungary than the house of Hapsburg.

My ancestor was surprised not to see the Marquis de Créqy. But his astonishment was short-lived, for a rumour at the other end of the Place announced the arrival of two other carriages, in an apparel still more pompous. They drove up to the other carriages and took up a position in the same line. The Marquis de Créqy stepped out, and advanced on to the square clad in the uniform of a colonel-general and general inspector of the King's armies, and wearing the insignias of the Golden Fleece, the grand crosses of Saint-Louis and Saint-Jean of Jerusalem. His countenance bore the traces of profound grief. He traversed the Grève with a firm step; the crowd stepped back respectfully before this great personage, who was one of Louis XIV.'s godsons.

As soon as the commissaire saw M. de Créqy, he retired from the balcony of the Hôtel-de-ville, as if only waiting for this final protest to bring the scene to a conclusion. This meant that justice was satisfied. The Marquis walked straight up to my ancestor with a severe face, and looking at him almost threateningly :

'Well, sir,' said he, in a stern voice, 'what of your promise?'

'Monseigneur,' answered Charles Sanson, 'at eight

o'clock this morning M. le Comte de Horn was dead, and the bar of my assistant struck a dead body.'

The priest confirmed my ancestor's words.

'Well,' said M. de Créqy, in a milder tone, 'our house shall remember that if it could obtain nothing from the clemency of the Regent and from the justice of Parliament, it is at least indebted to the humanity of the executioner.'

The Count's body was then untied and taken to one of the carriages. It was so mutilated that the limbs seemed ready to separate from the trunk. As a protest against the cruelty of the sentence, M. de Créqy insisted on holding one of the legs, which only adhered to the corpse by the skin. When this was done the carriages moved away in a file, and stopped before the house of the Countess de Montmorency-Lagny, nee De Horn, where the Count's remains were placed in a bier and deposited in a chapel. It remained there for two days, surrounded by a numerous clergy who sang the mass of the dead. Meanwhile Prince François de Lorraine, Bishop of Bayeux, had returned to Paris. He expressed much grief at having been unable to attend his unfortunate kinsman to the scaffold, thinking that the execution was to take place at a later date. He nevertheless arrived in time to join his prayers to those of the clergy, and, in company with MM. de Créqy and de Plessis-Bellière, he escorted the body to the Castle of Baussigny, in the Netherlands, where the Prince de Horn, eldest brother of the defunct, and head of the family, usually resided.

This extraordinary affair greatly irritated the highest personages of the State against the Regent and his favourites it proved of no assistance to Law, whose fall was unavoidable. On his return from his country-seat the Duke de Saint-Simon hastened to write to the Duke d'Havré to express his regret at what had occurred, and to say how he himself had been deceived by the false promises of the Duke d'Orléans.

I quote here the Duke d'Havre's answer, because it not only expressed the sentiments of all the French nobility, but it corroborates what I have said concerning Charles Sanson's conduct:

'My dear Duke,-I accept with gratitude, and I understand quite well, the regret you are kind enough to express. I do not know whether the Marquis de Parabère or the Marquis de Créqy obtained of the execu tioner of Paris the charity which is attributed to him; but what I do know is that the death of Count de Horn is the result of a false policy, of the financial operations of the Government, and, perhaps, also of the policy of the Duke d'Orléans. You know my sentiments of consideration for you. CROY D'HAVRÉ.'

Was Count de Horn really innocent? We have no right to judge the merits of those it was our mission to put to death. Nevertheless I have taken the liberty to allude to the rumours which were current at the time of De Horn's arrest, and which made him out to be the victim of the Regent's personal animosity. Another version

tended to establish his innocence, or, at least, so to diminish his responsibility in the Jew's murder, that, were the version correct, the sentence he suffered could only be regarded as a monstrous iniquity. It was said that M. de Horn and the Chevalier de Milhe had not made an appointment with the Jew with the intention of murdering and robbing him, but merely with the object of obtaining from him a large sum in shares of the Bank which the Count had really entrusted to him; that not only did the Jew deny the deposit, but that he went so far as to strike Antoine de Horn in the face. Upon this the young man, who was hot-blooded and passionate, seized a knife that lay on the table and wounded the Jew in the shoulder. It was De Milhe who finished him and took the pocket-book, of which the Count refused to have a share. If the affair occurred in this way, it must be acknowledged that the Regent, and the magistrates. who served his hatred, had a heavy reckoning to answer for.

CHAPTER VIII.

CARTOUCHE.

ON October 15, 1721, Paris was in a fever of excitement. The whole population was crowding the streets; in shops, taverns, and even in drawing-rooms, people greeted each other with this phrase, which nevertheless met with much incredulity :

'Cartouche is captured.'

'Barbier's Journal' related the capture in the following terms:

'15th.-Great News in Paris!—I have spoken before of one Cartouche, a notorious robber who was sought for everywhere and was found nowhere. It was thought to be a fable. His existence is only too real. This morning at eleven o'clock he was taken; but never was a thief more honoured.

'Words attributed to him inspired fear in the Regent, so that secret orders were given for his apprehension; and the report was spread in Paris that he had left the capital, that he had died at Orleans, and even that he was a myth, so that he should not imagine that he was being looked for.

'He has been discovered through a robbery he com