'You are all wrong. I am a stranger, whose name not one of you has ever heard----'
'A spy! an emissary of Pitt and Cobourg!'
'I am a foreigner, with whose sentiments you have no concern. I do not obtrude my opinions upon you.'
'What do we care for that?' shouted a deep voice. 'You have dared to offend the most sacred sentiments of a nation, and to riot in a festive orgie while we weep over the deathbed of a patriot.'
'_A la Grue! à la Grue!_' screamed the wild mass in a yell of passion.
Now the Grue was an immense crane--used in some repairs of the Pont Neuf--which still held its place at the approach to the bridge. It was here that a sort of public tribunal held its nightly sittings by the light of a gigantic lantern, suspended from the crane; and which, report alleged, had more than once given way to a very different pendant. It is certain that two men, taken in the act of robbery, had been hanged by the sentence of this self-constituted tribunal, which, in open defiance of the authorities, continued to assemble there. The cry, '_A la Grue! à la Grue!_' had, therefore, a dreadful significance; and there was a terrible import in the savage roar of the mob as they ratified the proposal.
'We will try him fairly. He shall be judged deliberately, and be allowed to speak in his own defence,' said several, who believed that their words were those of moderation and equity:
Powerless against the overwhelming mass, and too indignant to proffer one single word of palliation, Gerald was hurried along towards the quay.
There was something singularly solemn in the measured tread of that vast multitude, as, in a mockery of justice, they marched along. At first not a word was spoken; but suddenly a deep voice in the front rank began one of the popular chants of the day, the whole dense mass joining in the refrain. Nothing could be ruder than the verses, save the accents that intoned them; but there was in the very roar and resonance a depth that imparted a sense of force and power.
We offer a rough version of the unpolished chant--
'The Cour Royale has a princely hall, And many come there to sue; But I love the sight of a stilly night, And the crowd beneath the Grue.
No lawyer clown, with his cap and gown, Has complex work to do; For the horny hand and the face that's tanned Are the judges beneath the Grue.