The half hour was soon over, but long before that François had finished his confession, and he and the Bishop were chatting together pleasantly, and even laughing.
When the door was opened, and the time came for the last farewell, they kissed each other on the cheek affectionately.
“Thanks for all your kindness,” said François, “and make my apologies to Mathilde for all the trouble I gave her. Now, your Grace knows that I am a true penitent.”
“I think,” replied the Bishop, smiling and blinking, “that I stand no more chance of seeing Mathilde than you. We shall both be called upon to make our apologies to the Most High, shortly. Meanwhile, pray that when my time comes I may be as cool and unconcerned as you. I cannot say that I would wish to live as you have lived, Monsieur François le Bourgeois, as you call yourself, but I would certainly wish to die like you.”
“Ah!” cried François, gayly. “Living is much more important than dying. _Au revoir_ to your Grace. These Communards are such fools, they won’t find out for a week that they got the wrong pig by the ear.”
With that, the door closed, and François marched off cheerfully with his jailers to another cell in which he was to spend the three hours of life that remained to him. The cell was much larger and brighter than the one he had left, but cold and damp, in spite of the May heat and the fiercely burning city.
“What do you mean,” he said, “by putting me in this place where I shall be certain to catch cold?”
The jailer, who had a rudimentary sense of humor, grinned at this.
“I have heard a good many condemned persons grumble at their fate, but you are the first one I have seen who is afraid of catching cold three hours before he is introduced to a firing squad.”
“My friend,” replied François, “I am a gentleman, although somewhat in eclipse, and I want a fire made in this place, because I wish to be comfortable as long as I live.”
The jailer, still laughing, opened the door and called to a colleague, who brought a brazier and some charcoal, of which François secured several lumps.
“I feel in the vein for poetry,” he said, “and I wish to write some verses on this wall.”
While the jailer made a little fire in the brazier, François stood in meditation before the whitewashed wall, writing a few words, then rubbing them out with his sleeve, sometimes finishing a whole line with many corrections, just as poets usually do.