concerning the adventures of the descendants of Joel. Guyrion received these traditions from Eidiol, who received them from his grandfather, a resident of Britanny, before the separation of the grandchildren of Vortigern. I was barely eighteen years old when my father died. He made me promise him to record the experience of my life should I witness any important event. To that end he handed me the scroll of parchment written by Eidiol and the iron arrow-head taken from the wound of Paelo, the pirate. I carefully put these cherished mementos of the past in the pocket of my hose. That evening I closed my father's eyes. Early next morning I dug his grave near his hut and buried him. His bow, his arrows, a few articles of dress, his pallet, his trunk, his porridge-pot—everything was a fixture of and belonged to the royal domain. The serf can own nothing. Nevertheless I cogitated how to take possession of the bow, arrows and a bag of chestnuts that was left, determined to roam over the woods in freedom, when a singular accident upturned my projects. I had lain down upon the grass in the thick of a copse near our hut, when suddenly I heard the steps of two riders and saw that they were men of distinguished appearance. They were promenading in the forest. They alighted from their richly caparisoned horses, held them by the bridle, and walked slowly. One of them said to the other:

'King Lothaire was poisoned last year by his wife Imma and her lover, the archbishop of Laon ... but there is Louis left, Lothaire's son ... Louis the Do-nothing.'

'And if this Louis were to die, would his uncle, the Duke of Lorraine, to whom the crown would then revert by right, venture to dispute the crown of France from me ... from me, Hugh, the Count of Paris?'

'No, seigneur; he would not. But it is barely six months since Lothaire's death. It would require a singular chain of accidents for his son to follow him so closely to the tomb.'

'The ways of Providence are impenetrable.... Next spring, Louis will come with the Queen to Compiegne, and—'

"I could not hear the end of the conversation, the cavaliers were walking away from me as they spoke. The words that I caught gave me matter for reflection. I recalled some of the stories that my father told me, that of Amæl among others, one of our ancestors, who declined the office of jailor of the last scion of Clovis. I said to myself that perhaps I, a descendant of Joel, might now witness the death of the last of the kings of the house of Charles the Great. The thought so took hold of me that it caused me to give up my first plan. Instead of roaming over the woods, I went the next morning to my grandmother. I had never before stepped out of the forest where I lived in complete seclusion with my father. I was taciturn by nature, and wild. Upon arriving at the castle in quest of my grandmother, I met by accident a company of Frankish soldiers who had been exercising. For pastime they began to make sport of me. My hatred of their race, coupled with my astonishment at finding myself for the first time in my life among such a big crowd, made me dumb. The soldiers took my savage silence for stupidity, and they cried in chorus: 'He is a calf!' Thus they carried me along with them amidst wild yells and jeers, and not a few blows bestowed upon me! I cared little whether I was taken for an idiot or not, and considering that nobody minds an idiot, I began in all earnest to play the rôle, hoping that, thanks to my seeming stupidity, I might succeed in penetrating into the castle without arousing suspicion. My poor grandmother believed me devoid of reason, the retainers at the castle, the courtiers, and later the King himself amused themselves with the imbecility of Yvon the Calf. And so one day, after having been an unseen witness to the interview of Hugh the Capet with Blanche near the Fountain of the Hinds, I saw the degenerate descendant of Charles the Great expire under my very eyes; I saw extinguished in Louis the Do-nothing the second royal dynasty of France."

Marceline followed Yvon closely with her hands in his, and kissed him, thinking the recital over.

"But I have a confession to make to you," Yvon resumed. "Profiting by the facility I enjoyed in entering the castle, I committed a theft.... I one day snatched away a roll of skins that had been prepared to write upon. Never having owned one denier, it would have been impossible for me to purchase so expensive an article as parchment. As to pens and fluid, the feathers that I pluck from eagles and crows, and the black juice of the trivet-berry will serve me to record the events of my life, the past and recent part of which is monumental, and whose next and approaching part promises to be no less so."