and the arrival of the court at Loches, had sin- | himself was garnished with all the mysterious gularly rejoiced the young man; he was still articles employed in sorcery. But what especialmore so when he learned that the Maid of Or-ly struck the eyes of Father Cyrille was an enorleans had just re-conquered successively Jer- mous toad, a prisoner under a globe of glass. geau, Menny, Beaugency, and that the King was He wore on his back the little mantle of taffety advancing with her towards Beauce. indicating that he had been baptized by a sacrilegious priest, and had on his back a sort of brilliant crest.

His guide and himself then changed their direction; they left Orleans on their left and reached the outskirts of the forest of Neuville.

Until then Father Cyrille had endured the fatigues of the journey without complaint. But their provisions were now exhausted and they were reduced to live upon roots and wild herbs. The rain fell almost incessantly, and they found no other shelter but crumbling ruins or forsaken quarries. Father Cyrille's strength gave way. In the fourth day, exhausted by cold, fatigue and hunger, he stopped at the entrance of a little coppice and fell heavily beside the trunk of an old tree.

Seized with terror, Remy called for help; a shade advanced towards him.

"Whoever you may be," exclaimed he, "aid

us."

"Who are you, and what are you doing here?" asked the old woman.

Remy explained in a few words their situation and supplicated a shelter for himself and his companions. The old woman at first appeared to hesitate, but at last taking one of Father Cyrille's arms, while Remy took the other, they conducted him in this manner to the hill which bordered this coppice.

An old chateau long since ruined stood on its summit, and its dilapidated towers were dimly outlined in the sky laden with heavy mists. Af ter having followed a rocky path and cleared the remains of walls, the old woman at last pushed open the door of a sort of subterranean cave amid the ruins, which served as her habitation. She left her guests for a moment and returned with a lighted lamp; but at sight of the gown of Father Cyrille, which the darkness had not permitted her to distinguish before, she could not suppress a movement of surprise and

The old woman muttered some unintelligible words, took the lamp and was about to introduce her guests into a second room more remote; but Remy, who had just cast his eyes around the one where they were at this moment, hastly seized the hand of Father Cyrille, and said: "God protect us! do you see where we are, father?"

The monk raised his head and started in his turn.

The inquisitive attention of the monk had not escaped the old woman, and she increased it by enumerating aloud, in the form of a threat, the different endowments of her art.

Remy overwhelmed with terror, wished to leave immediately, but Father Cyrille, whose fear was mingled with wonder, detained him.

Remain," exclaimed he; "remain and cross yourself; the power of the demon cannot prevail against the symbol of Redemption. In the name of the Trinity, I conjure you, servant of Ashtaroth and Beelzebub, to cease your threats and renounce your spells."

The sorcerers stopped and remained for an instant motionless beside the door. Father Cyrille did not doubt that she would obey in spite of herself the powerful exorcism which he had just pronounced; but the old woman, who seemed to be listening, suddenly approached and said:

"Some one is coming to consult the Queen of Neuville."

"You have then received warning from the demon?" asked the astonished monk.

They are many," resumed the sorcerer, turning her back upon the door; "they are armed; withdraw with the boy and leave me to speak to them without witnesses."

She had taken the lamp and advanced towards an adjoining room; this she made her two guests enter.

It was a spacious cave, at the extremity of which was a still flaming brazier and a litter of dry leaves. The Queen of Neuville invited the two travellers to warm themselves and take some rest, then withdrew, closing the door of separation.

The terror of Remy was not dispelled. The monk attempted to calm him by repeating that magic formulas could be counteracted by those of exorcism. He afterwards approached the brazier which he rekindled and invited the youth to sit down with him on the bed of leaves.

But the voices of the new visitors were just then heard in the first room; Remy cautiously approached the door closed by the old woman, and, placing his eye to the crevices left between the disjointed boards, distinctly perceived all the personages of the scene transpiring on the other side.

The Queen of Neuville was standing a few steps off, holding in one hand an iron wand, while the other rested on the globe which covered the toad. Near the entrance were three armed men, whom the youth immediately recognized, by their cos"If I am not mistaken, this is a laboratory of tume and their colonies, to be archers of the Sire diabolical science," said he with a vivacity in de Flavi. All there spoke timidly from a diswhich fear had evidently less a part than curi-tance to the sorceress; but at last one of them osity, and he cast around him an eager glance. appeared to be emboldened: taking a step forThe species of dungeon in which he found ward, he found himself in the space illuminated

by the lamp; his features, until then concealed | Sire de Remy has committed to you for me," rein the shadow, were suddenly revealed, and sumed the Queen of Neuville, extending her wrinkRemy recognized Exaudi nos. led hand.

"Yes, yes, they shall be made examples," repeated several voices. "A rope! bring a rope!" "Here is one," cried Richard, detaching the halter from the horse of a servant.

"There is but one cravat for two," observed a gendarme.

"Each shall have his turn, like a sentinel," replied a second.

"Which shall we commence with?" "With the monk! with the monk!" "No," said Flavi, "with the boy." Exaudi nos had led the horse to a tree; he mounted the saddle, reached a branch and fastened the extremity of the halter to it. The two soldiers attempted to seize Remy; but Father Cyrille threw himself before him.

"Do not kill him!" exclaimed he, "in the name of God, do not kill him! we are not spies! The Sire de Flavi knows it, for his archer knows us. He has received hospitality in our convent. I dressed the wound on his right leg. I adjure him to declare here the truth!"

"Make haste," cried the governor, "hang them, or I will cut their throats with my sword."

And, raising her visor, she revealed to the astonished eyes of Remy the features of the shepherdess of Domremy!"

The boy uttered a loud cry and extended his hands towards her: she urged her horse in that direction and bent forward.

"Is this true, are you a friend of the English?" resumed she, hastily.

"Let them give me arms," exclaimed Remy, with a movement of indignation, "and they shall see whether my heart is with Charles or with Bedford."

"Well answered," said the maiden, turning towards Charles who had approached; "and our noble king will not refuse me the pardon of a poor goatherd of my country."

"Ask rather for him justice!" exclaimed the monk, "and the poor goatherd will become a rich and noble lord; for as true as there is a God, the youth here present is the legitimate son of the lady of Varennes."

Monk, thou liest!" exclaimed de Flavi, hastily advancing his horse towards Father Cyrille, and striking him so violently that he fell stunned and bleeding. "Take away this fellow," added he, making a sign to his people to seize him.

As he pronounced these words he had drawn the sword which he wore at his girdle, but was interrupted by loud shouts, and by a movement among the armed men who surrounded him; a troop of cavaliers had just appeared at a turn in the road, and arrived amid a cloud of dust. By their vestments of silk and gold, by the plumes which adorned sheir helmets, they were recog-blood of a Frenchman flow." nized as the King's guard.

But Jeanne had sprung to the ground to raise the monk, and exclaimed with emotion:

In their midst rode Charles VII, accompanied by The Constable de Richemond, La Tremouille, and the Maid of Orleans, with her standard of fustian fringed with gold. The troop halted at a few paces from the walnut.

As they recognized the King all the armed men had hastened to their horses to form their ranks, in order to receive him, and de Flavi was obliged to imitate them. The three soldiers were left alone with the monk and Remy; but they released the latter, whom they had raised towards the rope, and let him drop on the ground.

"Ah! he is wounded. Help me to relieve him, gentlemen, my heart faints when I see the

"That was not the act of a gentleman," said the king, severely.

"No," returned the maiden; "true knights do not strike the weak; but we will soon see whether these persons speak the truth."

"That will be easily done," replied Charles; "for we shall pass the chateau of Varennes this very evening. Wo will bring your protegés into the presence of the lady and wise men, who shall decide."

Towards evening the whole company encamped in sight of the chateau of Varennes, and Ambleville, one of the heralds of arms of the Maid of Orleans, came in search of Remy and his guide. The king and Jeanne had preceded them to the chateau.

On entering the grand hall they found Jeanne surrounded by several bishops and gentlemen who formed the king's council. The Sire de Flavi was near the door, with a more ferocious

There was a moment when every glance even those of the two prisoners, was occupied only with the victorious troop who had just stopped. The group in the midst of which the King was, slowly detached itself and advanced towards the company of the Sire de Flavi, which had just formed into ranks. The Maid of Orleans march-air than usual. ed on the right of Charles, clad in a suit of armor which had been manufactured for her, and girded with the five-starred sword, found on the church of Fierbois; her visor was lowered as if for combat.

Arrived at a little distance from the tree, she perceived the monk and the youth bound, and noticed the cord hanging from the branch.

"What were you about to do with these people?" asked she, stopping.

66 They are traitors," replied the Sire de Flavi "Let them perish then, if it is the will of God!" resumed Jeanne, sighing.

Then, as she approached nearer, she stopped again with an exclamation of surprise. "Traitors!" repeated she hastily; on my soul, you are mistaken, Messire."

At the moment the monk entered with Remy, the Maid stepped towards them.

"In the name of the Virgin Mary," said she, approach fearlessly, and explain your rights to these gentlemen. If you have spoken truth, as I believe, they will be merciful to you."

Cyrille bowed respectfully to the members of

the council.

Regnault de Chartres, Archbishop of Rheims and Chancellor of France, made a sign to the other members of the council, who sat down; then he commenced the interrogatory of Remy and Father Cyrille. The latter related in detail alt which the reader already knows, and presented, in support of his declarations, the letter dictated by Jerome Pastoret before his death.

But Messire de Flavi, who had listened to his

narration with a smile of ironical incredulity, | family, and is taught to the first-born. My son shrugged his shoulders when he had finished. was three years old when he learned it. If he "The story is very ingenious," said he, in a has not forgotten it, if he can repeat even a few scornful tone, " and might find men credulous words, doubt is impossible, for it is known only enough to believe it; but before replying to the to ourselves." reverend monk, I pray the council to hear the archer, from whom I learned the researches of the Lady of Varennes."

By the true cross, I know this witness; it is he who traitorously plotted my death, when I" was on my way to the king."

At this unexpected declaration, there was a general movement; the surprised judges turned; Exaudi nos became pale, and Father Cyrille approached Jeanne.

From the New Monthly Magazine. THE LION-KILLER OF ALGERIA.

M. JULES GERARD is one of those extraordinary men who seem to have sprung from the French occupation of Algeria. In his own particular department, he can only be compared to the Changarniers, the Cavaignacs, the Lamoricières, the St. Arnauds the elite of the African army in theirs. Still in the prime of life, he is in military rank only a lieutenant of Spahis; but as le tueur de Lions his reputation has spread all over Europe and Africa; the Arabs go in quest of him from the most remote duars or encampments, in order to enlist his services against their most formidable enemy. Travellers and romancers have vied with one another in giving currency to his exploits. We are not quite sure if the inimitable Dumas does not boast of having shared a cotelette de lion with the African chasseur.

tolerate. He became resolved to teach them that a Frenchman could do what they could not-attack and slay a lion single-handed, by night, alone:

Already at that time (he says, on an occasion when he was applied to by the people of Mahuna to disembarrass the tribe of a family of lions who had taken up their summer quarters in their territory, and who much abused the rights of hospitality), I had spent upwards of a hundred nights alone and without shelter, sometimes seated at the bottom of a ravine frequented by lions, at others beating the pathless woods.

I had met with troops of marauders and with lions, and with the help of God and of Saint Hubert I had always got through successfully.

Only experience had taught me that two balls seldom sufficed to kill an adult lion, and every time that I started on a fresh excurson, I remem bered, whether I liked it or not, that such a night appeared too long, either because I was overtaken by an attack of fever which made my hand shake, when I bade it be firm, or that some sudden We grieve to find that so resolute a lion-ex-storm had broken over me, at the most inopporterminator complains of wear of constitution by tune moment, and had prevented me seeing aught toil, privation, fatigue, exposure, and excite- around me for hours together, and that at the ment. "My limbs," he tells us," are no longer very moment when the roar of a lion answered supple, my rifle weighs heavily in my hands. to the rolling of the thunder, and that so close to My breathing is oppressed on ascending the me, that I looked upon one flash of lightning as most trifling eminence-my eyes alone have piece of good luck, for which, could it only remained good. The whole machine has have been prolonged a moment, I would have worn itself out in the field of honor; may you given half the blood that flowed in my veins. one day be able to say as much. But I shall it nevertheless go on to the end, too happy if Saint Hubert grants me the favor of dying in the claws and the jaws of a lion.*

a

And yet I cherished this loneliness-I sought out of spirit of nationality, in order to lower the hateful pride of the Arabs, whom I was hap py to see humble themselves before a Frenchman, not so much for the services which he renM. Jules Gerard has, according to his own dered them gratuitously, and at the peril of his account, spent six hundred nights alone in the life, but because he accomplished by himself African wilderness, exploring the ravines most that which they did not dare to do in numbers. favored by the king of beasts, or waiting at Thus, not only was every lion that fell, a matthe most frequented passes and fords; he has in that time only seen twenty-five lions. Such a rencounter is not a thing of every day; it requires a vast fund of assiduity, endurance, In the eyes of the Arabs, brave in war, brave and perseverance, and not the least curious part everywhere, except in the presence of the master of such devoted enmity to the lion tribe is its who they say holds his force from the Creator, origin-one which a traveller in the East can the hunter did not require to awaken the duars almost alone be expected to sympathize with. of the mountain, by a distant explosion, in order The spirit of the "Lion-Killer" was of that to obtain a triumph. select nature which cannot bear to succumb

before man or animal-the very proof of this is his readiness on the other hand to bow down before the Creator, or to worship him through Saint Hubert-his patron saint. But he could not bear to be called a dog of a Christian. He saw that the Arabs were courageous-far more so than it is given to Europeans to be but he saw also that they looked with supreme contempt and the most insufferable disdain at their French conquerors, and this he could not

La Chasse au Lion et les autres Chasses de l'Algerie, par Jules Gerard, precedees d'une introduction par M. Leon Bertrand, Directeur du

Journal des Chasseurs.

DXXXIII. LIVING AGE. VOL. VI. 18

ter of wonder to them,-but still less could they and at night, in those ravines which the people understand how a stranger could venture alone, of the country avoided even by broad daylight.

It was sufficient that he should leave his tent

at the fall of night, and that he should return at break of day safe and well.

of this feeling among the Arabs made it a law. It will be easily understood that the existence with me to continue in the career which I had marked out for myself, and that it was even of great help to me against emotions which were sometimes all-powerful, and against, I am not ashamed to add, the anguish of solitude by night in a country bristling with dangers of all kinds.

The national pride which had made me enter upon this carcer, once satisfied by repeated successes, I might have allowed myself to be accompanied by a few men, of great courage and devotedness, whose presence alone would have