A band of Tectosages joined to the Tolistoboies, and a horde of Gauls, united, and traversing Thrace with fire and sword, passed over into Asia Minor. They found it distracted by the quarrels of Alexander's successors. Summoned in an evil hour by Nicomedes to aid him and the Greek states of Asia Minor in their struggle against the Seleucidae, they soon established him on the throne of Bithynia. But they now turned their victorious arms against the nations of that unhappy country. Their armies, increased by reinforcements drawn from Thrace, had divided themselves into three hordes: the Tectosages, the Tolistoboies, and the Trocmes. To avoid dispute, they distributed the whole of Asia Minor into three parts: of these the Trocmes possessed the Hellespont and Troas; the Tolistoboies, AEolida and Ionia; the Tectosages, the coast of the Mediterranean from the west of Mount Taurus. They now overran and subdued all Asia Minor; every country, every town, was obliged to pay them tribute; or soon the fertile land was reduced to an arid desert, watered only by the blood of its inhabitants, and the costly city, stormed by the fierce warriors of the north, became a heap of smoking ruins. At last the Tectosages came in contact with Antiochus, king of Syria, and were totally defeated at the battle of the Taurus; the Syrian king, following up his victory, compelled them to resign their conquests, and to establish themselves on the banks of the Halys, near the town of Ancyra, in Upper Phrygia, where they dwelt, too weak again to enter on the career of conquest. Internal war prevented the Asiatics for some time from pursuing their successes, and the Trocmes and Tolistoboies continued still to pillage and oppress all the maritime provinces. Nay, their power was actually increased by those wars, as each of the contending parties purchased the mercenary services of large bands of those brave, though turbulent warriors. But the end of the Gaulish rule in Asia Minor was at hand. The small state of Pergamus, under the able rule of Eumenes, emerged from its obscurity, and inflicted a severe wound upon the Gauls by the defeat of Antiochus, king of Syria, with whom a great number of them served as mercenaries. His son Attalus, on his accession to the throne, immediately marched against and defeated the Tolistoboies. Ionia, which had long groaned under their oppression, seizing the opportunity, rose up against them; the Tolistoboies, beaten in several engagements, were driven beyond Mount Taurus; and the Trocmes, after a vain attempt to maintain themselves in Troas, were forced to retreat and unite with their defeated countrymen. Attacked now by the whole population of Asia Minor, the two hordes were driven by degrees into Upper Phrygia, where the Tectosages had formerly settled. Here the three hordes united, and here they founded the empire of Galatia.

"Thus ended in Asia Minor the dominion of this people in their character of nomad conquerors; another period of existence now commenced for them. Abandoning their wandering life, they mixed with the indigenous population, who were themselves a mixture of Greek colonists and Asiatics. That blending together of three races, unequal in power and in civilization, produced a mixed nation, that of the Gallo-Greeks, whose civil, political, and religious institutions, carry the triple stamp of Gaulish, Greek, and Phrygian manners. The regular influence which the Gauls are destined to act in Asia Minor, as an Asiatic power, will prove not to be inferior to that of which they have been deprived; and we shall see them defend, almost to the last, the liberty of the East against the Roman arms."—(I. 203-204.)

We have not space to follow M. Thierry in his very interesting account of the exploits of the Gaulish mercenaries in Greece—in particular of those who served in the army of Pyrrhus; or who, acting in the pay of Carthage, contributed so much to the victories of that powerful and wealthy people, and who took that lead in the famous insurrection of the mercenaries, which so nearly brought about their ruin. We must pass over too, unnoticed, the desperate struggle between the Romans and Gauls in Cisalpine Gaul, which ended in the defeat of the Boian confederacy at the battle of the Telama, and their submission, and the subjugation of the Insubrians by Marcellus. The whole of Cisalpine Gaul thus seemed to be finally subdued, when a new enemy suddenly appeared in the field, and again led the Gaulish standards into the heart of southern Italy.

Hardly had the Cisalpines laid down their arms, when there arrived amongst them emissaries sent by Hannibal to excite them to a renewal of the war, and to engage them in an alliance with Carthage, by promising to guarantee to them the liberty of their country, and by exciting their cupidity with the prospect of the spoils of Rome and southern Italy. They were well received, and secret armaments soon began to take place, especially amongst the Boian confederacy. But what immediately caused the outbreak was an attempt of the Romans to found two colonies, one at Cremona, and the other at Placentia. Enraged at this, the Boians took up arms, and attacking the colonists of Placentia, dispersed them, whilst the Insubrians expelled those who had advanced to Cremona. The Boians and Insubrians now uniting their forces, laid siege to Mutina, but in vain. This check, however, was more than counterbalanced by the defeat of a Roman army under the orders of Manlius. While affairs were in this state, the columns of Hannibal, descending from the Alps, arrived on the Insubrian territory. The result of the late successes of the Gauls in their disposition towards Hannibal, is well explained by Thierry:—

"Two factions then divided all Cisalpine Gaul. The one composed of the Venetes, the Cremonas, and the Ligures of the Alps, gained over to the Roman cause, opposed with vigour every movement in favour of Hannibal. The other, which included the Ligures of the Apennines, the Insubrians, and the people of the Boian confederation, had embraced the Carthaginian side, but without much ardour. The affairs of Gaul had undergone a great change. At the time when the propositions of Hannibal were received with enthusiasm, Gaul was humiliated and conquered; Roman troops occupied her territory—Roman colonies assembled in her towns. But since the dispersion of the colonies of Cremona and Placentia—since the defeat of L. Manlius in the forest of Mutina, the Boians and Insubrians, satisfied at having recovered their independence with their own forces, cared little to compromise themselves for the advantage of strangers, whose appearance and numbers inspired them with but slight confidence."—(I. 284-285.)

Hannibal felt all the importance of deciding the wavering sentiments of this people; on them his future success or defeat depended; to do this nothing but victory was requisite. He accordingly advanced rapidly against the Romans, and first engaged them in a cavalry action at the Ticinus. Victory declared for the Carthaginians. The horse of Numidia routed the cavalry of Rome. This success, unimportant as it was, revealed Hannibal to the eyes of the Gauls; influenced by it, the Insubrian chiefs hastened to supply him with provisions and troops. Hardly had the Carthaginians arrived in sight of the Roman camp at Placentia, when a large body of the Gaulish contingent revolted from Scipio, and contrived, though much reduced in numbers, to cut their way through in spite of all opposition, and join Hannibal. The famous battle of the Trebia—the first of those great victories which have rendered immortal the genius of the Carthaginian chief—soon followed; it at once decided the course of Cisalpine Gaul. Its immediate and ultimate effects on the power and operations of Hannibal are well developed by our author:—

"The fortune of Hannibal was then consolidated; more than 60,000 Boians, Insubrians, and Ligures flocked in a few days to his standards, and raised his forces to 100,000 men. With such a disproportion between the nucleus of the Carthaginian army and its auxiliaries, Hannibal was in reality but a Gaulish chief; and if, in the moments of danger, he had no cause to repent his new situation, more than once, nevertheless, he cursed with bitterness its inconveniences. Nothing could equal the courage and devotion of the Gaulish soldier in the dangers of the battle-field; but under the tent he had neither the habit nor the taste of military subordination. The lofty conceptions of Hannibal surpassed his comprehension; he could not understand war, unless such as he himself carried it on—as a bold and rapid plundering excursion, of which the present moment reaped the whole advantage. He would have wished to march instantly on Rome, or at least to pass the winter in some of the allied or subject provinces—in Etruria or in Umbria—there to live at discretion in pillage and license. Did Hannibal represent that it was necessary to spare the provinces in order to gain them over to the common cause, the Cisalpines broke forth into murmurs; the combinations of prudence and genius appeared in their eyes but a vile pretext to deprive them of the advantages which they had legitimately won."—(I. 292-293.)

We cannot follow the steps of the great conqueror in his memorable campaigns—in his fatal march over the fens of Etruria, or through the glorious field of Thrasymene. But the share which the Gauls had in the mighty victory of Cannae, and the change of the seat of war, with the results which followed from it, are of such importance, and the remarks made upon them by M. Thierry are so just, that we shall give the whole of his account of this event at full length:—

"From the field of Thrasymene Hannibal passed into southern Italy, and gave battle a third time to the Romans, near the village of Cannae, on the banks of the Aufidus, now called the Offanto. He had then under his banners 40,000 infantry and 10,000 cavalry; and of these 50,000 combatants, at least 30,000 were Gauls. In his order of battle, he placed their cavalry on the right wing, and in the centre their infantry, whom he united to the Spanish infantry, and whom he commanded in person: the Gaulish foot, as was their custom on all occasions when they were determined to conquer or die, threw off their tunic and sagum, and fought naked from their waist upwards, armed with their long and pointless sabres. They commenced the action; and their cavalry and that of the Numidians terminated it. We know how dreadful the carnage was in that celebrated battle—the most glorious of the victories of Hannibal—the most disastrous of the defeat of Rome. When the Carthaginian general, moved with pity, called to his soldiers 'to halt, and to spare the vanquished,' without doubt the Gauls, bloodthirsty in the destruction of their mortal enemies, carried to that butchery more than the ordinary irritation of wars, the satisfaction of a vengeance ardently wished for, and long deferred. There 70,000 Romans perished; the loss on the side of the conquerors was 5500, of which 4000 were Gauls. Out of 60,000 Gauls, whom Hannibal had enumerated around him after the combat of the Trebia, 25,000 only remained; battle, sickness, above all, the fatal passage over the marshes of Etruria, had cut off all the rest; for up to this period they had supported almost exclusively the weight of the war. The victory of Cannae brought to the Carthaginians other auxiliaries; a crowd of men from Campania, Lucania, Brutium, and Apulia, filled his camp; but it was not that warlike race which he formerly recruited on the banks of the Po. Cannae was the term of his success; and assuredly the fault ought not to be imputed to his genius, more admirable even in adverse than in good fortune—his army only had changed. For two thousand years history has accused him with bitterness for his inaction after the battle of Aufidus, and for his delay at Capua; perhaps it might reproach him more justly for having removed from the north of Italy, and for having allowed his communications with the soldiers who had conquered under him at Thrasymene and Cannae, to be cut off. Rome perceived the fault of Hannibal, and hastened to profit by it. Two armies in echelon, the one to the north, and the other to the south, intercepted the communication between the Cisalpines and Magna Graecia. That of the north, by its incursions and by its threatening attitude, occupied the Gauls at their own hearths, whilst the second made head against the Carthaginians."—(I. 297-300.)

It has been said by the most renowned conqueror of modern times, that, give him but the Gallic infantry and the Mameluke cavalry, and he would subdue the world. And it cannot fail to strike the attentive reader with astonishment, to learn that the severest blow ever given to the power of Rome was inflicted by the Gaulish foot and the Numidian horse. It is curious, as exemplifying the unchanging characters of race, to observe that the greatest general of antiquity triumphed at the head of an army, composed of those very nations whom Napoleon, after the lapse of two thousand years, declared best fitted to pursue the blood-stained paths of military greatness.

The efforts of the Gauls did not cease with the battle of Cannae; they defeated an army under Posthumius, which invaded their territory. When Hasdrubal led his ill-fated expedition to strew their bodies on the Italian plains, he was accompanied by large bands of those brave adventurers; and when Carthage, making a last effort to succour her general, disembarked 14,000 men under the command of Mago, Hannibal's brother, at Genoa, numerous bodies of Gauls flocked to his standards. And this general, though unable to effect his junction with Hannibal, yet maintained his ground for ten years, till at last, defeated in the territory of the Insubrians, he retired to Genoa. There he received orders to return to the defence of Africa:—

"His brother also, recalled by the Carthaginian senate, was obliged to embark at the other extremity of Italy. The Gaulish and Ligurian soldiers, who had faithfully served Hannibal during seventeen years, abandoned him not in his days of misfortune; re-united to their compatriots who had followed Mago, they formed still a third part of the Carthaginian army at Zama, in the celebrated day which terminated that long war to the advantage of the Romans, and displayed to the world the genius of Hannibal humbled before the fortune of Scipio. The ferocity with which the Gauls fought has been recorded by the historian: 'They showed themselves,' says Titus Livy, 'inflamed with that inborn hate against the Roman people, peculiar to their race.'"—(I. 310-311.)

The war in Cisalpine Gaul did not cease with the departure of Hannibal. Under the orders of Carthaginian officer, the Gauls again took the field—Placentia fell beneath their arms; but they received a severe defeat from L. Furius, in the year 200 B.C., when the Carthaginian general Amilcar perished. From this period till the year 191 B.C., the Gaulish nations were involved in a constant succession of wars, in which, though occasionally victorious, they were upon the whole unsuccessful. Exposed to the incessant incursions of the Romans, their strength gradually wasted away; each year left them in a state more exhausted and unfit to renew the war than the preceding. Nation after nation laid down their arms in despair, till at last the Boian confederacy stood alone in its resistance of a foreign yoke; but their ravaged lands and reduced numbers were unequal to the struggle, and when, in the year 190 B.C., the Roman armies advanced into the heart of their exhausted territory, the few remaining inhabitants determined to abandon the land of their birth, and to seek, amidst ruder nations, and beneath a more ungenial sky, for that liberty in defence of which their fathers had so often bled. Accordingly, the wreck of a hundred and twelve Boian tribes, rising en masse, united, and wending their weary steps over the snow-clad summits of the Alps, and through the pathless forests of Germany, they found at last, on the banks of the distant Danube, a resting-place far removed from the hated name of Rome.

All resistance from Cisalpine Gaul now ceased. Occasionally, indeed, a few tribes from the Transalpine would cross the Alps and descend into Italy, but they could not withstand the shock of the legions. The conquered territory was declared a Roman province, which it ever afterwards remained.

We have not space to follow M. Thierry in his account of the progress and fall of that strange Gaulish kingdom of Galatia. From the year 241 to the year 190 B.C., it maintained its independence unshaken, amidst the degenerate sons of Greece and the effeminate Asiatics. But the Roman power, beneath which the Gaulish race was ever doomed to bend, overtook them even amidst the mountains of Asia Minor. The Galatians had furnished some troops to Antiochus the Great, and then, for the first time, they came in contact with the eagle of the Capitol. The first encounter is thus alluded to by our author:—

"The Romans had annihilated, at Magnesia, the Asiatic and Greek forces: yet the conquest of the country appeared to them still incomplete. They had encountered, beneath the banners of Antiochus, some bands of a force less easily conquered than the Syrians or the Phrygians: by the armour, by the lofty stature, by the yellow or reddish locks, by the war-cry, by the rattling clash of arms, by the dauntless valour above all, the legions had easily recognised that old enemy of Rome whom they had been brought up to fear. Before deciding any thing as to the lot of the vanquished, the Roman generals then determined to carry the war into Galatia."—(I. 360-361.)

Accordingly, in the spring of 189 B.C., Cn. Manlius, with 22,000 legionaries and an auxiliary army furnished by the King of Pergamus, invaded Galatia: at his approach the Tolistoboies and Tectosages intrenched themselves upon Mount Olympus, and the Trocmes upon Mount Megalon, and there awaited the attack. The consul first advanced to Mount Olympus. He led his troops to attack the Gaulish position in three columns; the principal column, under his own orders, was to advance on the Gauls in front, the other two were to try and turn their position on either flank. The column which he led first engaged.

"His velites advanced in front of the standards, with the Cretan archers of Attalus, the slingers, and the corps of Trulles and of the Thracians. The infantry of the legions followed with slow steps, as the steepness of the declivity rendered necessary, sheltered beneath their bucklers, so as to avoid stones and arrows. At a considerable distance the combat began with discharges of arrows, and at first with equal success. The Gauls had the advantage in position, the Romans in the number and variety of their arms. The action continued, the equality no longer remained. The narrow and flat bucklers of the Gauls protected them insufficiently: soon having expended their darts and javelins, they found themselves altogether disarmed: for at that distance their sabres were useless. As they had made no selection of flints and stones beforehand, they seized the first which chance threw in their way, which were for the most part too large to be easily wielded, or for inexperienced arms to throw with effect. The Romans, meanwhile, poured down upon them a murderous hail of arrows, javelins, and leaden balls, which wounded them, without their having any possibility of avoiding the approach. * * * * A great number had bit the dust, others adopted the course of rushing right on the enemy, and they, at least, did not perish unavenged. It was the corps of the Roman velites who did them most harm. These velites carried on their left arm a buckler three feet in size, in their right hand javelins, which they threw from afar, at their girdle a Spanish sword; when it was necessary to engage in close contact, they transferred their javelins to the left hand, and drew their sword. Few Gauls now remained on foot: seeing then the legions advance to the charge, they fled precipitately to their camp, which the alarm of the multitude of women, children and old men who were shut up within it, already filled with tumult and confusion."—(I. 373-376.)

The other two columns had, from the difficult nature of the ground, been unable to make any progress. Manlius now led on his legionaries to assault the intrenchment, which they carried at the sword's point. A few days after this victory, Manlius advanced with his triumphant army to attack the Trocmes, who were intrenched on Mount Megalon. This battle resembled much, both in its progress and in its termination, the one which preceded it. The Trocmes were driven with slaughter from the field, and their camp taken. Dispirited by this double defeat, the Galatians, who had rallied their scattered forces behind the Halys, sued for peace. The Romans, desiring rather to conciliate than to irritate this warlike people, merely exacted that they should surrender the land which they had taken from the allies of Rome, and that they should give up their wandering and predatory habits, so injurious to all their neighbours. Under the influence of the forced peace in which the subjection of Asia to the Romans kept the Galatians, their manners rapidly changed. Asiatic luxury took the place of northern barbarity; the worship of the national gods was abandoned, and the idols of the stranger were substituted in their room; the coarse garments of ancient days, gave place to vestments of purple and gold: yet a little while, and the loss of national manners was followed by the loss of political privileges; the magistracies, formerly elective, now became hereditary; the families who usurped this privilege formed, in course of time, a bright and all-powerful aristocracy. Ambition limited the number of these magistracies; from twelve they were reduced to four; at last they were centred in a single hand: so that when Galatia was united as a province to the Roman empire, it was governed by a hereditary king. Yet, amidst this usurpation of the sovereign power, the national council of the Three Hundred still continued to exist, and assist in the government of the state.

During twenty years peace subsisted between the Galatians and their Asiatic neighbours. At the end of that period, however, a war broke out, and pillaging bands once more began to traverse the plains of Asia Minor; when Rome interposed, and by her mediation peace was restored. Mithridates, uniting beneath his sway all the powers of the East, drove back for a while the Roman eagles, and seemed about to restore their ancient glory to the Asiatics. The Galatians joined with him; but their fidelity became suspected, and he seized upon sixty of their nobles as hostages. Enraged at this treatment, they formed a plot to assassinate him; it was frustrated, and the conspirators were almost all treacherously put to death at a banquet. His troops then advancing, took possession of Galatia, which was governed by one of his officers with insolence and oppression for twelve years. At last a revolt broke out; his armies were driven from the country; Galatia was once more free. The defeat of Mithridates by the Roman arms ensured their independence for a short time; but the rest of Asia was now subject to the Romans. Surrounded, enveloped on all sides by their power, Galatia yielded at last, and was reduced to the form of a Roman province in the time of Augustus.

Here M. Thierry ends the first part of his History of the Gauls; and thus far we have followed him step by step, because we considered this both the least known and the most interesting portion of Gaulish history. The two periods which follow are more familiar to historical readers: because, during them, Rome was the great enemy of the Gauls; and if she has often palliated her defeats, she has at least never failed to chronicle her victories. Henceforth, therefore, we shall no longer attempt to follow the thread of his narrative. The victories of Marius, the campaigns of Caesar, stand in no need of our attention being directed to them, as to the wars of the Brenn in Greece, or the conquests of the horde in Asia Minor. Here we take leave of the Gaul as the conquering nomad; we have seen him wandering through the land of the stranger with fire and sword; but the hour of vengeance has now come, and we shall see him bleed in vain on his native soil for that liberty of which he had so often deprived others.

M. Thierry opens his history of the second period with an exceedingly interesting account of the state of Gaul during the second and third centuries before our era. Gaul was then inhabited by three distinct families or races. By the Iberian family—divided into the Aquitains and the Ligures. By the Gaulish family—divided into the Gauls, the Kimry, and the Belgians. And by the Ionian-Greek family, or the inhabitants of the powerful and flourishing maritime and commercial state of Massalia. The Iberian and Ionian-Greeks, families occupying comparatively but a small portion of Gaul, need not detain us. With the Gauls we have more to do. Our author gives the following account of the way in which their territory was divided amongst the three different bands of this family:—

"A line which, setting out from the mouth of the Tann, follows the course of that river, then that of the Rhone, the Iser, the Alps, the Rhine, the Vosges, the AEdnian hills, the Loire, the Vienne, and comes at last to rejoin the Garonne, by turning the plateau of Arvernia: that line would nearly circumscribe the possessions of the Gallic race. The territory situated to the east of that limit belonged to the race of the Kimry; it was in time divided into two portions by the line of the Seine and the Marne, the one northern and the other southern. To the south, between the Seine and the Garonne, lived the Kimry of the first invasion, intermingled with Gallic blood, or the Gallo-Kimry. To the north, between the Seine and the Rhine, the Kimry of the second invasion, or Belgians. The Gauls numbered twenty-two nations; the Gallo-Kimry, seventeen; and the Belgians, twenty-three. These sixty-two nations were subdivided into many hundred tribes."—(I. 28.)

He then enters into a long and most interesting description of the domestic manners, and political and religious institutions, of the Gauls.

After having traced the Gaul for so long in the field, we love to follow him into his cabin—to observe his appearance, his pursuits, his habits—to mark the manly figure, the fair complexion, the flowing yellow locks, the glittering helmet surmounted with the antlers of the stag, the buckler covered with all the colours of the rainbow, the polished cuirass flashing back the rays of the morning sun, the heavy sabre hanging from the gold-bespangled belt, the precious necklace, the rich armlets, the bright and variegated hues of the martial sagum or mantle, of the noble Gaulish warrior. We follow him as he turns away from his clay-built mansion, and, regardless of the silent tears and entreating looks of his submissive, perhaps ill-used wife, hurries into the noise and excitement of the battle-field. Observe the wild frenzy that there seems to seize him, as he rushes with dauntless courage on the bristling phalanx of his enemies; as, amidst the clouds of dust which float overhead, and the horrid cries which resound on all sides, he tears and widens with savage ferocity the fearful gash he has just received; as, a moment after, overcoming in personal conflict yon stalwart chief, he decapitates, with one blow of his heavy sabre, the yet palpitating corpse, and waves the gory head with demoniac triumph in the air; and as he returns home, yet reeking with blood and intoxicated with victory, and suspends above his threshold the ghastly trophy. Look again—the scene is changed—the glittering arms are flung aside. With his mantle floating in the breeze, his light spear quivering in his hand, he plunges into the pathless forest; with fearless step he pursues his way through the leafy shade, and traverses the treacherous surface of the morass. Beneath yon giant oak he has encountered the fiercest inhabitant of those solitudes—the wild bull; but it has fallen beneath his javelin, which yet protrudes from it bushy neck, and, as it lies struggling on the greensward, making the wood ring again with its bellowings, his dagger is raised to give it the final stroke.—Observe him once more in the council of his nation. The warriors stand in an attentive circle leaning on their arms; he has risen to address them; his action is animated, his words are vehement; the polished accents, the finished periods of the Greek, flow not from his lips, but there is eagerness in his eye, there is earnestness in his speech, his language is figurative in the extreme, a thousand picturesque and striking images illustrate his meaning; his metaphors, drawn from the battle and the chase, thrill to the bosom of all his listeners; and the clash and clang of their arms, amidst which he sits down, proclaims alike their assent to his proposition and their admiration of his eloquence. It is amidst scenes like these that we love to follow the Gaul, to picture to ourselves an old race and an old civilization, which combined in so strange a way the greatness and the savageness, the heroism in danger and weakness under temptation, of primeval and half-civilized man.

To comprehend clearly the internal and external history of the Gauls, we must understand the political condition of their country. This is unfolded in a clear and masterly manner by our author, in the following passage:—

"In Gaul, two privileged orders ruled the rest of the people—the elective order of the priests, who recruited themselves indiscriminately from all ranks, and the hereditary order of the nobles or knights. This latter was composed of the ancient royal families of the tribes, and of those men who had been recently ennobled, either by war or by the influence of riches. The multitudes were divided into two classes—the people of the country, and the people of the town. The first formed the tribes or the clans of the noble families. The client belonged to his patron, whose domains he cultivated, whose standard he followed in war, under whom he was a member of a little patriarchal aristocracy; his duty was to defend him to the death from, and against all: to abandon his patron in circumstances of danger, passed for the consummation of disgrace, and even for a crime. The people of the towns, from their situation, removed from the influence of the old hierarchy of the tribes, enjoyed greater liberty, and fortunately found themselves in a situation to maintain and to defend it. Beneath the mass of the people came the slaves, who do not appear to have been very numerous. The two privileged orders caused the yoke of their despotism to weigh, turn by turn, upon Gaul. Turn by turn they exercised absolute authority, and lost it by a series of political revolutions. The history of the government of the Gauls offers, then, three very distinct periods: that of the reign of the priests, or of the theocracy—that of the reign of the chiefs of the tribes, or of the military aristocracy—lastly, that of the popular constitutions, founded on the principle of election, and on the will of the majority. The epoch which we are about to treat of, accomplished that last and great revolution; and popular constitutions, although still ill assured, at last ruled over all Gaul at the commencement of the first age."—(II. 71-73.)

M. Thierry recognises in the Gauls the traces of two distinct religions. He says—

"When we examine attentively the character of the facts relative to the religious belief of the Gauls, we are led to recognise two systems of ideas, two bodies of symbols and superstitions altogether distinct—in a word, two religions: the one altogether sensible, derived from the adoration of natural phenomena, and by its forms, as well as by its literal development, reminding us of the polytheism of the Greeks; the other founded upon a material pantheism, metaphysical, mysterious, sacerdotal, and presenting the most astonishing conformity with the religions of the East. That last has received the name of druidism, from the druids who were its founders and priests. We shall give to the first the name of the Gaulish polytheism."—(II. 73-74.)

Thierry thinks that this polytheism originally prevailed amongst the Gauls, but that the Kimry introduced druidism, which soon became the dominant religion over the whole of Gaul, though the original polytheism ingrafted upon it more or less, in different places, some of its tenets and ceremonies. The great seat of the religion of the druids was Armorika, and, above all, Britain; there existed the most powerful of their sacerdotal colleges—there were celebrated the most secret of their mysteries.

It is wondrous thing, that religion of the ancient druids! A solemn mystery enshrouds it—all the efforts of modern science cannot lift the veil. When we look on yon circle of stones which, grey with the lapse of ages, stands in lonely majesty upon the dreary moor, near which no sound is ever heard, save the distant and sullen roar of the ocean, as it breaks in sheets of foam on the rock-bound coast—the fitful cry of curlew, as it wings over them its solitary way—or the occasional low moaning of the wind, as, stealing through amidst the rocks, it seems to pour forth a mournful dirge for the shades of departed greatness:—when we look on a scene like this, we have before our gaze all that is known of these men of the olden time. Their blood-stained rites, their solemn mysteries, are forgotten; but their simple temples still stand imperishable as the God to whom they were erected. From the study of the ancient authors little or no information can be gleaned; a few descriptions of their bloody sacrifices, an account of some of their more public ceremonials, is all that they have handed down to us. But the real nature of their religion is unknown: more of its spirit is taught to us by those silent stones than by all other accounts put together. The choice of the situations for those sacred monuments amidst the melancholy waste, or buried deep in the recesses of some vast forest, where the wide-spreading branches of their sacred tree (the oak) casts its deep shadows over the consecrated spot, with no canopy save the heavens, shows the dark and gloomy spirit of their faith. They worshipped the God of the thunder-storm, not the God of peace; and it was amidst the thunder-storm that their horrid rites appeared most horrid. When, illuminated by the lurid glare of the lightning, the gigantic osier figure filled with human beings sank into the flames—when the shouts of the multitude who stood in a dense circle around the spot, the frenzied chants of the druids, and the despairing shrieks of the dying victims, were drowned in the sullen roar of the thunder—then must the fearful nature of their creed have stood forth in all its horrors. Yet with all this, there was a sort of grandeur in the seclusion and simplicity of their worship. All was not blood; and though they bowed down to the Unknown God in an erring and mistaken spirit, yet must their conception of him been fine. The God of nature and the wilderness—the God of the tempest and the storm—was a nobler idea than the immortalized humanities of Greek and Roman mythology, though both had wandered equally far from the true God of Mercy and of Peace.

When Massalia was hard pressed by two Gaulish nations, she summoned, in an evil hour, Rome to her aid. By the Roman arms her assailants were repelled, but these allies maintained their footing in the country. They soon subdued Liguria, and founded the town of Aquae Sextiae; the Gaulish nation of the AEdues united with the strangers; a defensive league entered into by the Allobroges and the Arvernes to drive them from their shores, was defeated. The territory acquired by these victories was organized into a Transalpine province; this province gradually went on increasing; its communications with Italy were assured, by the Romans obtaining possession of the passes of the Alps. In the year 118 B.C., the first Roman colony in Gaul was founded at Narbonne; hither, in course of time, came the great maritime commerce which had raised Massalia to her greatness; hither, too, flowed much of the internal traffic of Gaul. The ships of Massalia lay rotting in her harbours, her extensive quays lost their busy multitudes. In the fall of her naval power, in the loss of her commercial policy, she received a just reward for having wafted to her shores, and assisted with her forces, the stranger who was destined to rule over the Gaulish people. The organization of the province was completed; and from Narbonne, Roman emissaries issuing forth, laboured, by augmenting the quarrels and dissensions of the native tribes, to afford an opportunity for her to extend the limits of the empire.

Driven from the shores of the Baltic by an inroad of the ocean, the two tribes of the Kimry and the Teutones uniting, precipitated themselves, to the number of 300,000 fighting men, upon the more southern countries. In the course of their wanderings they came upon the Roman province of Norica, which they laid waste with fire and sword, and where they defeated the consul, Papirius Carbon, with great loss. Without taking advantage of this opportunity to enter Italy, which now lay open to their attack, they entered the country of the Helvetii, where they were joined by the tribes of that people, the Ambrones, the Tigurines, and the Teutones; descending now upon Gaul like a devastating torrent, they wasted it as far as the Belgian frontier; here, however, the resistance of the inhabitants prevented them from advancing further. Turning now upon the Roman province of Transalpine Gaul, they defeated three Roman armies under Silanus, Cassius, and Scaurus; and here they were joined by that portion of the Tectosages who had formerly returned from the disastrous invasion of Greece. The Roman generals, Cepio and Manlius, who had advanced against them, were utterly routed, and great part of the province laid waste. From hence the Kimry penetrated into Spain, where they remained for two years, pillaging and wasting the country, till, having received a check from the Celtiberians, they repassed the Pyrenees, and united with their confederated in the plains of Gaul. The united bands now prepared to march upon Italy; this they did in two divisions: one, consisting of the Kimry and the Tigurines, directed its steps through Helvetia and Norica and by the Tridentine Alps; while the other, consisting of the Ambrones and the Teutones, moved on the route which leads to Italy by the Maritime Alps: both divisions had appointed a common rendezvous on the banks of the Po.

Rome was not unprepared for this invasion; to meet it, Marius had been recalled from his command in Africa, and invested with the consular power. When the division of the Ambrones and the Teutones reached the Maritime Alps, they found that general encamped in a position which lay directly in their line of march. Assaulted for three successive days, the Romans maintained themselves in their intrenchments: at last the Gauls, giving up the attempt to force them, passed on and soon reached Aquae Sextiae, whither they were followed by Marius. Marius encamped on a hill opposite the quarter of the Ambrones; between them flowed a river. The sutlers of the Roman army having descended to obtain water, encountered, in the bed of the torrent, some Gauls. A skirmish began; the Ambrones flocked in great numbers to support their comrades; soon they assembled their whole force and advanced upon the Romans. In crossing the stream they were vigorously opposed by the auxiliaries. Marius, seeing the favourable opportunity, led down his legions to the attack. Unable to withstand the shock, the Ambrones were driven back with great loss; the river ran red with their blood; the plain was covered with fugitives; and their routed forces halted not till they reached the neighbouring quarter of the Teutones. In their camp the Romans experienced more resistance from the women, who, rather than fall into the hands of their enemies, flung themselves on the hostile ranks, or perished by their own hands. Marius drew off his troops before night, and retreated to his former position on the hill. The next night he sent round 3000 men to occupy a wood in the rear of the position of the Teutones. The following morning he drew out his legions in battle array upon the slope of the hill, and sent forward his cavalry to skirmish with the enemy, and induce them to engage with him. They fell into the snare: pursuing his cavalry, they advanced to the river's edge, and there, in an evil hour, crossed it and attacked the Roman army. The contest which ensued was long and desperate; the Gauls had the advantage in numbers, the Romans in discipline and position. But while victory still hung in the balance, the 3000 Romans, issuing forth from their ambuscade, fell upon the rear of the Teutones: this produced irremediable confusion in the ranks of the Gauls. The Romans redoubled the energy of their attack, and the victory was no longer doubtful. Many perished in the field, more in the pursuit; the remainder were cut off in detail by the peasants, who assailed them on all sides.

Meanwhile the other divisions of the Gauls, consisting of the Kimry and the Tigurines, after traversing Helvetia and Norica, arrived at the Tridentine passes of the Alps at the end of winter. To keep possession of these passes the Tigurines halted upon the summits of the ridge, while the Kimry, continuing their march, descended into the valley of the Adige. On their approach the consul Catulus, who was charged with the defence of this part of Italy, retreated behind the Adige; and when the Gauls advanced to attack him, his legions were seized with such a panic, that, abandoning their camp, they fled, and halted not till they had placed the Po between themselves and the enemy. The Kimry now spread themselves over the whole territory beyond the Po, and occupied the land without opposition: here they determined to await the arrival of the other column. This delay saved Italy; for it afforded time for Marius and his army to cross the Alps, and effect a junction with Catulus and his troops. In the July of 101 B.C., Marius and Catulus advanced to meet the Kimry on the banks of the Po. On the 30th of July the hostile armies met to decide the fate of Italy in the Campus Ranolius. The battle which ensued was long and bloody; but overcome by the heat of the day and the immense clouds of dust, and exposed by their imperfect defensive armour to all the strokes of the enemy, the Kimry were in the end totally defeated. When the Romans, in the course of the pursuit, came to their camp, the same scene occurred as that which took place at Aquae Sextiae; as the women, after defending themselves for some time, at last put an end to their existence with their own hands. On receiving news of this defeat, the Tigurines abandoned the passes of the Alps, and retreated to their native country, Helvetia. Thus ended the last invasion of Italy by the Gauls. Rome acknowledged the danger she had run by the gratitude she displayed to Marius, who received the title of the third Romulus, and his triumph was celebrated with all the enthusiasm of a grateful country.

We pass in silence over the various occurrences in Gaul till we come to the year 58 B.C. This was the year when Caesar commenced his career of victory. His first achievement was the defeat of the Helvetii, who, rising en masse, wished to abandon their sterile country, and gain by the sword a more fertile land. He next advanced against Ariovistus and his Germans, who were ravaging with fire and sword the eastern portions of Gaul: these he likewise totally routed—thus delivering the inhabitants from a withering scourge. But their joy at this event was soon changed into sadness, when they saw that the Romans had no intention of retreating from their territory. Establishing himself amongst the Sequanes, Caesar levied contributions and collected provisions from all the neighbouring nations. Their discontent soon burst forth; they flew to arms, and prepared to make a desperate fight in defence of their liberties. We have no room to follow the Roman through his various campaigns; to trace the long and gallant stand made by the Gauls in defence of their native land; or the great and admirable genius of Caesar, nowhere displayed so greatly as in his Gaulish campaigns, though perfidy sometimes tainted his councils, and torrents of innocent blood too often stained his arms. Suffice it to say, that after three campaigns, the north and west had submitted to his forces, and he had made his first descent on the British shores. In his fourth campaign he undertook his second expedition against Britain, and subdued some more of the continental tribes. But a general movement now took place over nearly the whole of Gaul against the Romans, who at first suffered some severe checks; but the military skill of Caesar, in the course of a fifth campaign, again triumphed. Though so often vanquished, these brave people were not yet subdued. A new league was entered into by their cities; the war broke out afresh; and an able general, Vercingeto-rix, now directed their movements. It was during the course of his sixth campaign, which now followed, that Caesar ran the greatest danger and achieved the greatest triumphs. The surprise of Genatum, the capture of Avaricum, seemed at first to promise a speedy victory to his arms; but a repulse which he suffered before the walls of Geronia was the signal for the whole of Gaul to unite with the insurgents. A victory which he gained over Vercingeto-rix soon afterwards, checked for the moment, but did not dispirit, the Gauls; and the whole weight of the war was soon collected around the ramparts of Alexia. Both parties felt that the contest which would now ensue must decide the fate of the campaign, and both made the most strenuous exertions to prepare for it. The gigantic lines of Caesar were soon surrounded by the whole force of the enemy, and a combined attack was made upon them both from within and without. Great and imminent was the peril; but the steadiness of the legions, and the gallantry of their chief, surmounted it, and the banners of Rome finally waved triumphant over the hard-fought field. The fruits of this victory were immense. Alexia capitulated; the Gaulish nations who had been most active in the war submitted; and Vercingeto-rix was given up to the conquerors. Yet was a great part of the country still unsubdued; and when in the ensuing year, B.C. 51, Caesar took the field in his seventh and last campaign in this country, he found a powerful and numerous confederacy in arms. Taught by the experience of the past, they no longer attempted to unite their whole forces and defeat him in general engagements, but endeavoured to exhaust his resources, and wear out his troops by a protracted defensive warfare. They fortified and garrisoned their towns so as to impose on him the necessity of innumerable sieges; whilst the country, on his line of march, was laid waste, and his troops were harassed by the incessant attacks of their skirmishers. But Caesar overcame all difficulties: if they met him in battle, they were vanquished; if they retreated to their fortifications, they were driven from them by escalade; if they took refuge in their marshes, he pursued and overtook them even there. Dispirited by these constant defeats, the Gauls, for the last time, laid down their arms. The conquered territory was organized as a new province of the Roman empire, and Caesar laboured to attach it to his person by the lenity and moderation of his government. In this he succeeded; nor had he ever reason to repent of having done so; for, during the civil wars which raised him to the imperial power, he received no inconsiderable assistance from the courage and devotion of its inhabitants. Here, as a free people, ends the history of the Gauls. We shall not follow M. Thierry in his account of the last period of their annals, which embraces the subjugation of the Britons; the organization of Gaul into a subject province; the gradual loss of their nationality by its inhabitants; the spread of Roman manners and Roman civilization amongst them; their transition from an independent people to an integral part of the Roman empire. Here we take leave of them: their arms have just dropped from their hands; liberty has just fled from their shores; the fetters of conquest sit strangely on their free-born limbs; they have not yet learned the vices of a subject race: after having followed them in their career of conquest, and through the hard-fought struggle in their native land, we love not to dwell on the crushing of their haughty spirit.

Throughout the whole of his history, Thierry sustains the interest well; but nowhere is his narrative more animated than in his account of the wars of Caesar; and no wonder, for a nobler field could not lie before him. His book is altogether one of the most curious and interesting which we possess on the history of ancient times. A great work it cannot be called. M. Thierry is more a man of talent than of genius; and accordingly, in his work, we are more struck with the interest of his narrative than with the profoundness of his reflections: it contains not the philosophy of Guizot, nor the originality of Michelet, yet it is a valuable addition to modern literature. Would that we saw a few more such in our own country!

FOOTNOTES:

{A} Histoire des Gaulois, par M. AMADEE THIERRY. 3 tomes. Paris: 1835.



THE WITCHFINDER.

CONCLUSION.

At the upper end of the large Gothic room, forming the interior of the town-hall of Hammelburg, which was formally prepared as a court of trial, sat upon a raised part of the flooring in his chair of state, the Ober-Amtmann; before him were placed, at a velvet-behung table, his schreibers or secretaries; beside him sat, upon a low cushioned stool, his daughter, the fair Fraulein Bertha, surrounded by her tirewomen, who remained standing behind her.

The presence of the young Fraulein was of rare occurrence upon occasions of judicial ceremony in the old town-hall. But a solemn appeal to her testimony had been made by the witchfinder; and her father, whose sense of justice considered that a matter of accusation of so heavy and serious a nature as that of witchcraft, should be investigated in all its bearings, had commanded her presence. Her heart, full of the purest milk of human kindness, revolted, however, from witnessing the progress of such terrible proceedings—the justice of which her simple mind, tutored according to the dark prejudices of the age, never once doubted, but which curdled her blood with horror. And she sat pale and sad, with downcast eyes, scarcely daring to raise them upon the crowd that filled the hall, much less upon the most conspicuous object in the scene before her—the unhappy being against whom all curses, all evil feelings, all insane desires of blood and death, were then directed. Perhaps there was another reason also, which, almost unconsciously, caused her to keep her eyes fixed upon the earth; perhaps she feared that they might meet two other mild blue eyes, the expression of which was that of a deep—far too deep—an interest; for it caused her heart to beat, and her spirit to be troubled; and her bosom to heave and sigh, she knew not wherefore: unless, indeed, she were, in truth, bewitched.

In the centre of the hall was placed the accused woman. She was seated upon a rude three-legged stool, which was firmly fixed upon a raised flooring, elevated about three feet from the ground—her face turned towards her judge. A slight chain passed round the middle of her body, and fastened her down to her seat. She was still attired in the dark hood and cloak which had been her customary dress, and sat, with head bent downwards, and her hands clasped languidly upon her knees, as if resigned, in the bitterness of her despair, to meet the cruel fate that awaited her.

Below, was a compact and turbulent crowd of the lower orders of the town, which was with difficulty kept, by the pikemen, within the limits assigned to it; and which, from time to time, let forth low howls against the supposed sorceress, that increased, like the crescendo of distant thunder, and then died away again.

On either side, towards the upper end, were ranged upon benches some of the more reputable bourgeois and their spouses, all decked out in their finest braveries, as if they were present at a theatrical show, or a church mystery: and, in truth, the representation about to be given, was but little more in their own eyes, than a sort of show got up for their especial gratification.

Guarded by two pikemen, stood the cripple—his teeth set firmly, although his lips quivered with excitement—his light eyes glaring fiercely around with an air of savage exultation, and gleaming, as it were, with a pale phosphoric fire, from out of the dark ground of his swarthy face and lank black hair. He moved restlessly and uneasily upon his withered limbs, clenching by fits and starts his rosary from his bosom, and murmuring a hasty, and—to judge by the wildness of his eyes, that showed how his mind was fixed upon far other thoughts—a vain prayer. He rolled also his head and the upper part of his body continually backwards and forwards, like a wild beast fretting in his cage.

Among the more prominent of the crowd, whom the favour of the guards had allowed to push beyond the assigned limits, or whom reasons, connected with the trial, required to come forwards, stood "Gentle Gottlob." His brow was overclouded with sadness, for he felt in how fearful a pass this horrible denunciation had placed the woman whom he had so long regarded with attachment. His mild blue eye was more melancholy than of wont; and yet, in spite of the trouble of his mind, he was unable to withdraw his looks from that bright loadstone of his affections, whose sadness seemed to sympathize with his own. At least, his heart would fain persuade him that there was mysterious sympathy in their mutual dejection.

The principal personages concerned in the awful question at issue, occupied, thus, their respective positions in the old town-hall; when, after a long and troubled pause, during which silence was with difficulty obtained among the more tumultuous portion of the crowd at the lower end of the hall, one of the schreibers rose, and read, from an interminable strip of parchment which he held in his hand, the act of accusation against the female known under the popular designation of "Mother Magdalena," as attainted of the foul crime of witchcraft, of the casting of spells and malefices to the annoyance and destruction of her fellow-creatures, of consorting with spirits of darkness, and of lascivious intercourse with the arch-fiend himself. For so ran, at that time, the tenor of the accusation directed against the unhappy women suspected of this imaginary crime.

The act of accusation was long, and richly interlarded with all those interminable complications of legal phraseology, which seem ever, at all times, and in all nations, to have been the necessary concomitants of all legal proceedings. The reading of the act, however, being at last terminated, the town-beggar, commonly known by the familiar name of Black Claus the witchfinder, Schwartzer-Claus, or Claus Schwartz, as he was usually designated among the people, was summoned to stand forward as the denouncer of the aforesaid Magdalena, and to substantiate his charge.

Thus called upon, the cripple gave a start forward, like a lion let loose upon the gladiator's arena, through the barred gates of which he has already sniffed the odour of blood; and then, raising one of his long arms towards the stool of penitence, on which the criminal had been placed, he again repeated, with an eagerness amounting to frenzy, his accusation against her.

As the witchfinder's hoarse voice was heard, a visible shudder passed through Magdalena's frame; but she raised not her head, moved not a limb, spoke not; and it was only when called upon by the chief schreiber to declare what she had to say against this accusation, that she lowly murmured—"God's will be done!" but still with bowed head and downcast eyes.

In support of his denunciation, the cripple proceeded to state how he had watched the mysterious female called "Mother Magdalena," and had observed that she never would enter any consecrated building; how she would daily advance up the steps of the church, and then pause before the threshold, as if she feared to pass it, and then throw herself down upon the stones before the gate, where she would lie in strange convulsions, and at last return without having penetrated into the building—an evident proof that the devil she served had forbidden her to put her foot into any sacred dwelling, but had taught her, nevertheless, to approach near enough to treat the awful mysteries of the Christian religion, performed within, with mockery and contempt. To this accusation, which was confirmed by the acclamation of several persons present in the court, Magdalena, when called upon to speak, proffered no denial; she contented herself with the meek reply, that God alone knew the motives of the heart—that it was for him alone to judge. The words were still uttered in the same low despairing tone, and without the slightest movement of her head from its sunken posture.

The partially monastic dress, which was her habitual attire, was next brought forward against her as a proof of her desire to treat with contempt the dress of the religious orders: and to this absurd accusation, when asked why she had adopted a costume resembling that of the holy sisterhood of penitents, the old woman still refused any reply.

The events of the previous afternoon, when she had been openly seen to throw her staff at the Amtmann's unoffending daughter, and wound her on the neck, and then break into pieces the image of the Holy Cross, were then recapitulated, as facts known upon the positive evidence of a hundred witnesses.

These matters disposed of, the cripple proceeded to detail his own peculiar grievances, and attributed, as he had done in the cases of the seven unhappy women who had already fallen victims of his frantic delusion, the severe pains that had racked his poor distorted limbs to the malefic charms of the sorceress. He related how, on the last night on which he had met Mother Magdalena, he had found her sitting by the well in the market-place, casting a spell upon the spring, and turning the waters to poison and blood—as a proof of which, he swore to have himself tasted in the water of the bucket the taste of blood; how, in revenge for his warning to her to desist from her foul practices, she had pointed up her finger to the sky, and immediately brought down upon his head all the combined waters of heaven; how she had vanished from his sight in this storm, he knew not how; and how immediately intense pains began to torture his joints, until he became half frantic with agony, and had been compelled, by hideous visions, to quit the shelter he had sought, in order to be exposed to all the peltings of the storm. He had since suffered, he declared, the tortures of the damned in all his limbs, with occasional fits of shuddering, sometimes of hot fever, sometimes of the most freezing cold, which were evidently torments worked upon him by the powers of darkness. And as he spoke, the unhappy wretch was again seized by one of his fearful fits of ague, during the convulsions of which the clamours of the crowd grew terrible against the sorceress.

"What sayest thou to this accusation, woman?" said the chief schreiber. "Thou see'st how even now he suffers."

"I have never willed evil to any man—not even to him," was Magdalena's only reply.

When recovered from his fit, the cripple again raised his head—it was to cast a glance at the object of his denunciation, in which hatred and triumph were blended together, in one of those occasional flashes of wildness which showed that there was a vein of insanity running through all the frenzied zeal of the witchfinder. He had now arrived at a period of his narration, when the most damning proof of all was to overwhelm the accused woman.

It was not without an unaffected expression of horror, that he went on to relate how he had wandered around the building by the Watergate, in a lower cell of which he had discovered that she dwelt, seeking in vain to find an entrance or a peep-hole, that might enable him to penetrate into the interior; how he had, at last, dragged his crippled limbs up into a tree upon the river's bank, overlooking an upper chamber of the building; how he had, at first, seen Mother Magdalena in conversation with the young illuminator; how, upon his departure, she had flung herself down upon her knees, and after spitting upon one of the books of holy writ upon the table, had made wild gestures of conjuration, upon which the demon himself, attired in a dark robe, had suddenly appeared by supernatural means, for he had not entered by the door; how the foul hag had fallen down and worshipped the arch-fiend; and how, after a conference of short duration, during which the woman at his feet appeared to supplicate with earnestness, probably a prolongation of her wretched term of power to work ill, and afterwards kissed his hand in token of adoration and submission, the demon had vanished as suddenly as he had appeared.

A low murmur of horror ran through the assembly, as Black Claus related this fearful story. All eyes were turned upon the handmaiden of Satan. For a moment she had raised her head, horror-struck at this interpretation of the interview she had in Gottlob's chamber with the stranger—for a moment she seemed to have a desire to speak. But then, clasping her hands before her face, she murmured—"O God! it cannot be! But this is terrible!"

Gottlob, who, during the whole accusation, had listened with much impatience, could now no longer restrain his generous feelings. He started forward with the words—"No, no, it is impossible! Speak, Magdalena—say how false is this man's tale."

"God knows that it is false!" said Magdalena.

"I knew it could not be. There could be no one with thee in my chamber, and he lies."

"No," replied Magdalena sadly, "thus far is true:—There was a stranger by me in your chamber."

"But who then?—speak, Magdalena," urged Gottlob. "Clear yourself of the foul stigma of his tale."

"I may not say!" replied the unhappy woman. "But God will prove my innocence in His own right time."

"Why hesitate," again cried the eager young man, "when with a word you could disprove him?"

"I have already said it cannot be," said the accused woman, sinking her head upon her breast.

Gottlob himself drew back with a shudder; for a moment he knew not what to think; the strange answers of Magdalena perplexed and troubled him. He began himself to doubt of the woman, who, in return for his benevolence, had showed him the attachment of a mother. He pulled his cloak over his face with both his hands, and stood for a time overwhelmed.

"It needs no further questions upon this point, I presume," said the chief schreiber, turning to the Ober-Amtmann. "The wretched woman has already admitted a part of the truth;" and, with a sign to the denouncer, he bade him proceed.

The witchfinder paused for a moment, and gave one long look of tenderness and pity—as far, indeed, as his harsh, rudely-stamped features could express such feelings—at the pale face of Bertha. Then, fixing his eye keenly upon the Ober-Amtmann, as if to fascinate his attention, he burst into a fresh accusation against the sorceress, as having, in the first place, cast her spells upon the noble Fraulein Bertha, for the purpose of sowing the seeds of death within her frame; and as having, in the second place, employed the young man called "Gentle Gottlob" to be an involuntary agent in her work of ill.

Upon hearing the first part of this charge, Magdalena had raised her head to give, unconsciously as it were, a deprecating look at the fair girl—as if to assure her, with that one long concentrated look of deep feeling, that, far from desiring her evil, she contended only with the overpourings of kindness and love for her; and then, as though she had already expressed more than her conscience could approve, she bowed again her head, murmuring only—"O God! support me. Thou knowest how false is the raving of that wretched man." The second part of the charge excited other and very varied feelings among those present. Magdalena again started, but with evident surprise, and made a hasty gesture of denial. Gottlob sprang forward, horrified at being thus involved, even as an involuntary agent, in the hideous denunciation, and indignant at the supposition that he could work ill to the Amtmann's lovely daughter; and he protested, with all the vehemence which gentle natures, when roused into excitement, will display, against so unfounded and calumnious an accusation; whilst Bertha, joining together her small hands, as if in supplication, turned her face, with anxious expression, to her father, crying—"No, no—it cannot be!"

Astounded at so unexpected a revelation, the Ober-Amtmann seemed at first not to know what to think. He gazed alternately upon Gottlob and Bertha, as if to read upon their faces the secret of a connexion between them; and then, satisfied of the impossibility that the noble Ober-Amtmann's daughter could have the slightest affinity with the unknown youth before him, he drew a long breath, and passed his hand over his brow, as if to drive away ideas so absurd.

"Peace, youth—peace!" he cried to Gottlob; "we will hear thee anon. It is not thou who art accused. And thou, my child be calm. Cripple! what mean thy words? What proof bringest thou of their truth?"

"Ask of the suffering angel by thy side, my noble lord," replied the cripple with emotion. "Let her tell how, of late, her cheek has grown pale, her limbs have become weary, her very life's-blood languid and oppressed. I have watched her day by day, and I have seen these changes. I have watched her with a careful and a cunning eye; and I have felt—there, in my heart—that the spell was upon her: and this it was that urged me to denounce that wretched hag."

"Speak, my child," said the Ober-Amtmann, in trouble and anxiety. "What this man says, is it true? Hast thou suffered lately? Indeed, I do remember thy cheek has been paler than of wont—thy appetite has left thee—thou hast been no longer so cheerful or so active as of old. Speak, my child—hast thou really suffered?"

"Oh, no! my father, I have not suffered," replied the agitated girl in much confusion; "and yet I have not been as formerly I was. I have been sad, I knew not why, and wept in the silence of my chamber without cause; and I have found no pleasure in my embroidery, nor in my flowers, nor in my falcons. I have felt my foot fall weary. I have sought to rest, and yet, when reposing, I have felt unable to remain in quiet, and I have longed for exercise abroad. But yet I have not suffered; and sometimes I have even hugged with pleasure the trouble of my mind and body."

"These seem, indeed, the symptoms of a deadly spell upon thee, my poor child," exclaimed her father. "Such, they say, are the first evidences of the working of those charms that witches breathe over their victims."

"And let the Fraulein Bertha tell," cried the witchfinder, "how it has been yonder youth who has seemed to exercise this influence of ill upon her."

Again Gottlob sought to spring forward and speak; but a sign from the Ober-Amtmann to the guards caused them to place their pikes before him, and arrest him in his impulse.

"How and what is this, my child?" said the Ober-Amtmann. "Knowest thou that youth? and in what has he, consciously or unconsciously, done thee ill?"

"He has done me no ill," replied the innocent girl in still greater confusion, as her bosom heaved, and the blood suffused her cheeks. "I am sure he would not do me ill for all the treasures of the world!"

"Thou knowest him then?" said her father, somewhat more sternly.

"No, I know him not," replied Bertha in trouble; "but I have met him sometimes in my path, and I have seen him"—she hesitated for a moment, and then added, with downcast eyes, "at his window, which overlooks our garden."

"Why then this trouble, Bertha?" continued the Ober-Amtmann, in a tone that rendered their conversation inaudible beyond their own immediate circle.

"I cannot tell myself, my father. I feel troubled and sad, it is true; and yet I know not why. I have no cause"——

"And when thou hast met yonder youth, as thou sayest, hast thou felt this trouble before?"

"Alas! yes, my father. I remember now that at his aspect my heart would beat; my head grow giddy, and my ears would tingle; and then a faintness would come over me, as though it were a pain I felt, and yet it was a pleasant pain. There was nothing in him that could cause me ill; was there, father?"

The Ober-Amtmann's brow grew dark as Bertha proceeded; but, after a moment's reflection, he murmured to himself—"Love! oh, no! It is impossible! She and he! The noble's daughter and the low-born youngster. It could not be! There is no doubt! Witchcraft has been at work! How long has it been thus with thee, my child?" he added with solicitude.

"I cannot tell, my father. Some five or six months past it came upon me. I know not when or how!"

"Bears he no charm upon him?" exclaimed the Ober-Amtmann aloud.

"He bears a charm upon him!" cried the witchfinder in triumph. "And ask who bound it round his neck?"

"It is false! I bear no charm!" cried Gottlob eagerly. "She herself denied that it was such."

"Of what does he speak?" cried the Ober-Amtmann.

"It was but a gift of affection, and no charm. She gave me this ring," said Gottlob, pointing to the ring hung by a small riband round his neck; "and I have worn it, as she requested, in remembrance of some unworthy kindness I had shown her."

"And how long since was it," enquired the Ober-Amtmann, "that she bestowed this supposed gift upon you?"

"Some five or six months past," was Gottlob's unlucky answer; "not long after I first brought her to reside with me in my poor dwelling."

During this examination the agitation of Magdalena had become extreme; and when, upon the Ober-Amtmann's command that the ring should be handed up to him, Gottlob removed it from his neck, and gave it into the hands of one of the guards, she cried, in much excitement, "No, no; give it not, Gottlob!"

The ring, however, was passed on to the Ober-Amtmann; and Magdalena, covering her face with her hands, fell back, with a stifled groan, into her former crouching position.

The sight of the ring seemed indeed to have the power of a necromancer's charm upon the Ober-Amtmann. No sooner had his eyes fallen upon it, than his cheek grew pale—his usually severe and stern face was convulsed with agitation—and he sank back in his chair with the low cry, "That ring! O God! After so many years of dearly-sought oblivion!"

At the sight of the Ober-Amtmann's agitation and apparent swoon, a howl of execration burst from the crowd below, mingled with the cries of "Tear the wretch in pieces! She has poisoned him! Tear her in pieces!" Consternation prevailed through the whole assembly. Bertha sprang to her father's side; but the Ober-Amtmann quickly rallied. He waved his daughter back with the remark, "It was nothing—it is past;" and raising himself in his chair, looked again upon the ring.

"There is no doubt," he murmured, "it is that same ring—that Arabic ring, brought me from the East, and which I gave—oh, no!—impossible!" he hurriedly exclaimed, as a horrible thought seemed to cross him. "She has been dead many years since. Did not my own brother assure me of her death? It cannot be!"

After a moment's pause to recover from his agitation, he gave orders to one of the guards to remove the hood from Magdalena's head, that he might see her features. With the crooked end of a pike's head, one of them tore back her hood; while another, with the staff of his pike, forced her hands asunder. Magdalena's careworn and prematurely withered face was exposed to the gaze of all, distorted with emotion.

"Less rudely, varlets!" cried the Ober-Amtmann, with a feeling of sudden forbearance towards the wretched woman which surprised all present; for they could not but marvel at the slightest symptom of consideration toward such an abhorred outcast of humanity as a convicted witch; and as such the miserable Magdalena was already regarded.

For a moment the Ober-Amtmann considered Magdalena's careworn, withered, and agitated face with painful attention; and then, as if relieved from some terrible apprehension, he heaved a bitter sigh, and murmured to himself—"No, no, there is no trace of that once well-known face. I knew it could not be. She is no more. It was a wild and foolish thought! but this ring—'tis strange! Woman, dost thou know me?" he asked aloud, with some remaining agitation.

"I know you not," replied Magdalena with a low and choked voice; for she now trembled violently, and the tears gushed from her eyes.

"How camest thou then by this ring? Speak! I command thee," continued the Ober-Amtmann.

Magdalena bowed her head with a gesture of refusal to answer any further question.

"Wretched woman! Hast thou violated the repose of the dead? Hast thou torn it from the grave? How else came it in thy possession?"

The unhappy woman replied not. She had again covered her face with her hands, and the tears streamed through her meagre fingers.

"Speak, I tell thee! This ring has conjured up such recollections, that were there but one human link between thee and one who has long since rested from all sorrow in the grave, it might ensure thy safety."

No answer was returned by Magdalena; although, to judge by the convulsed movement of her body, the struggle within must have been bitter and heavy to bear.

"Die then in thy obstinacy, miserable woman," cried the Ober-Amtmann in a suppressed voice—"Let justice take its course!"

"Denouncer!" said the chief schreiber to the witchfinder, "hast thou further evidence to offer?"

"Needs it more to convict a criminal of the foul and infernal practices of witchcraft?" cried Black Claus with bitterness.

The chief schreiber turned to the Ober-Amtmann, as if to consult his will. For a moment the Ober-Amtmann passed one hand across his brow, as though to sweep away the dark visions that were hovering about it; and then, waving the other, as if he had come to a resolution which had cost him pain, said with stern solemnity—"Let the workers of the evil deeds of Satan perish, until the earth be purged of them all."

This customary formula implied the condemnation of the supposed sorceress.

"To the stake! to the stake!" howled the crowd, upon hearing the delivery of this expected sentence.

After enjoining silence, which was with difficulty enforced, the chief schreiber rose, and addressed to Magdalena the accustomed question, "Woman, dost thou demand the trial by water, and God's issue by that trial?"

"I demand but to die in peace," replied the miserable woman; "and God's will be done!"

"She refuses the trial by water," said the chief schreiber, in order to establish the fact, which was put down in writing by the adjuncts.

"To the stake! to the stake!" howled the crowd.

"And hast thou nothing to urge against the justice of thy sentence?" asked the official questioner.

"Justice!" cried Magdalena, with a start, which caused the chain around her waist to clank upon the wretched stool on which she sat. "Justice!" she cried in a tone of indignation. For a moment the earthly spirit revolted. But it gleamed only for an instant. "May God pardon my unjust judge the sins of his youth,"—she paused, and added, "as I forgive him my cruel death!" With these words, the last spark of angry feeling was extinguished for ever. "May God pardon him, as well as those who have thus cruelly witnessed against me; and may He bless him, and all those who are most near and dear to him," she continued—her voice, as she spoke, growing gradually more subdued, until it was lost and choked in convulsive sobbings.

Again a thrill of horror passed through the Ober-Amtmann; for the sound of the voice seemed to revive in his mind memories of the past, and recall a vision he had already striven to dispel from it. His frame shuddered, and again he fell back in his chair.

"It is a delusion of Satan!" he muttered, pressing his hands to his ears, and closing his eyes.

Bertha's eyes streamed with tears; her pitying heart was tortured by this scene of sadness.

"Blessings instead of curses upon those who have condemned her! Can that be guilt?" said gentle Gottlob to himself. "Can that be the spirit of the malicious and revengeful agent of the dark deeds of Satan? No—she is innocent; and I will still save her, if human means can save!"

After thus parleying with himself, Gottlob began to struggle to make his way from the court.

"The blessings of the servants of the fiend are bitter curses," said the infatuated witchfinder, on the other hand; "and she has blessed me. God stand by me!"

"To the stake!—to the stake!" still howled the pitiless, the bloodthirsty crowd.

The refusal of the unhappy Magdalena to abide by the issue of the well-known trial by water, had so much abridged the customary proceedings, that orders were given, and preparations made, for the execution of the ultimate punishment for the crime of witchcraft—burning at the stake—shortly after daybreak on the morrow.

It was yet night—a short hour before the breaking of the dawn. The pile had been already heaped in the market-place of Hammelburg—the stake fixed. All was in readiness for the hideous performance about to take place. The guards paced backwards and forwards before the grated doorway, which opened under the terrace of the old town-hall; for there, in that miserable hole, was confined the wretched victim of popular delusion. The soldiers kept watch, however, upon their prisoner at such a distance as to be as far as possible out of the reach of her malefic spells. The heavy clanking of their pikes, as they rested them from time to time upon the pavement, or paused to interchange a word, alone broke the silence of the still sleeping town—sleeping, to awake shortly like a tiger thirsty for blood. The light of a waning moon showed indistinctly the dark mass in the centre of the market-place—the stage upon which the frightful tragedy was about to be enacted—when one of the sentinels all at once turning his head in that direction, descried a dark form creeping around the pile, as if examining it on all sides.

"What's that?" he cried in alarm to his comrade, pointing to this dark object. "Is it the demon himself, whom she has conjured up, and who now comes to deliver her? All good spirits"—and he crossed himself with hurried zeal.

"Praise the Lord!" continued the other, completing the usual German form of exorcism, and crossing himself no less devoutly.

"Challenge him, Hans!" said the first; "at the sound of a Christian voice, mayhap, he may vanish away; and thou art ever boasting to Father Peter that thou are the most Christian man of thy company."

"Challenge him thyself," replied Hans, in a voice that did not say much for the firmness of his conscience as a Christian.

"Let's challenge him both at once," proposed the other soldier. "Perhaps, between us, we may muster up goodness enough to drive the foul fiend before us."

"Agreed!" replied Hans, with somewhat better courage; and upon this joint-stock company principle of piety, both the soldiers raised their voices at once, and cried, in a somewhat quavering duet, "Who goes there?"

A hoarse laugh was the only answer received to this challenge; and the dark form seemed to advance towards them across the market-place.

So great appeared the modesty of each of the soldiers with regard to his appreciation of his own merits as a good Christian—so little his confidence in his own powers of holiness to wrestle with the fiend of darkness in the shape which now approached them—that they seemed disposed rather humbly to quit the field, than encounter Sir Apollyon in so glorious a contest; when the dim light of the moon revealed the figure, as it came forward, to be that of the witchfinder.

"It is Claus Schwartz!" said Hans, taking breath.

"Or the devil in his form," pursued his fellow-sentinel with more caution. "Stand back!" he shouted, as the witchfinder came within a few yards, "and declare who thou art."

"Has the foul hag within there bewitched thee?" cried Black Claus; "or has she smitten thee with blindness? Canst thou not see? The night is not so dark but good men may know each other."

"What wouldst thou here?" said Master Hans, completely recovered from his spiritual alarm.

"I cannot rest," replied the witchfinder with bitterness. "Until her last ashes shall have mingled with the wind, I shall take no repose, body or mind. I cannot sleep; or, if I close my eyes, visions of the hideous hags, who have already perished there, float before my distracted eyes. It is she that murders my rest, as she has tormented my poor limbs—curses on her! But a short hour, a short hour more, and she too shall feel all the tortures of hell—tortures worse than those she has inflicted on the poor cripple. The flames shall rise, and lap her body round—the bright red flames. Her members shall writhe upon the stake. The screams of death shall issue from her blackened lips; until the lurid smoke shall have wrapped her it its dark winding-sheet, and stifled the last cry of her parting soul, as it flies to meet its infernal master in the realms of darkness. Oh, it will be a glorious sight!" And the cripple laughed, with an insane laugh of malice and revenge, which made the soldiers shudder in every limb, and draw back from him with horror.

It seemed as if the fever of his excitement had pressed so powerfully on his brain as to have driven him completely into madness. After a moment, however, he pulled his rosary from his bosom, and kissed it, adding, in a calmer tone, "Yes, it will be a glorious sight—for it will be for the cause of the Lord, and of his holy church."

Little as they comprehended the witchfinder's raving, the soldiers again crossed themselves, and looked upon him with a sort of awe.

"What wouldst thou?" said one of them, as Claus advanced towards the prison door.

"I would look upon her, there—in her prison," said the cripple, with an expression that denoted a malicious eagerness to gloat upon his victim.

The soldiers interchanged glances with one another, as if they doubted whether such a permission ought to be allowed to the witchfinder.

"Ah, bah!" said Hans. "It is not he that will aid her to escape. Let him pass. They'll make a fine sport with one another, the witchfinder and the witch—dog and cat. Zist, zist!" continued the young soldier, laughing and making a movement and a sound as if setting on the two above-mentioned animals to worry each other.

"Take care," said his more scrupulous companion. "Jest not with such awful work. Who knows but it may be blasphemy; and what would Father Peter say?"

The two sentinels continued their pacing up and down, but still at some distance from the prison doorway, in order, as Hans's companion expressed it, "to keep as much as possible out of the devil's clutches;" while Black Claus approached the grating of the door.

As the witchfinder peered, with knitted brow, through the bars of the grating, it seemed to him at first, so complete was the darkness within, as though the cell was tenantless; and his first movement was to turn, in order to warn the guards of the escape of their prisoner. But as he again strained his eyes, he became at last aware of the existence of a dark form upon the floor of the cell; and as by degrees his sight became more able to penetrate the obscurity within, he began plainly to perceive the form of the miserable woman, crouched on her knees upon the damp slimy pavement of the wretched hole. She was already dressed in the sackcloth robe of the penitents condemned to the stake, and her poor grey hairs were without covering. So motionless was her form that for a moment the witchfinder thought she was dead, and had fallen together in the position in which she had knelt down; and the thought was like a knife in his revengeful heart, that she might thus have escaped the tortures prepared for her, and thwarted the gratification of his insane and hideous longings. A second thought suggested to him that she was sleeping. But this conjecture was scarcely less agonizing to him than the former. That she, the sorceress, should sleep and be at rest, whilst he, her victim, could find no sleep, no rest, no peace, body or mind, was more than his bitter spirit could bear. He shook the bars of the door with violence, and called aloud, "Magdalena!"

"Is my hour already come?" said the wretched woman, raising her head so immediately as to show how far sleep was from her eyelids.

"No, thou hast got an hour to enjoy the torments of thy own despair," laughed the witchfinder, with bitter irony.

"Let me, then, be left in peace, and my last prayers be undisturbed," said Magdalena.

"In order that thou mayst pray to the devil thou servest to deliver thee!" pursued Black Claus, with another mocking laugh. "Ay—pray—pray; but it will be in vain. He is an arch-deceiver, the fiend, thy master. He promises and fulfils not. He offers tempting wages to those who sell to him their souls, and then deserts his servants in the hour of trouble. So prayed all the filthy hags who sat there before thee, Magdalena; but they prayed in vain."

"Leave me, wretched man!" said Magdalena, who now became aware that it was the cripple who addressed her. "Hast thou not sufficiently sated thy thirst for evil, that thou shouldst come to torment me in my last moments? Go! tempt not the bitterness of my spirit in this supreme hour of penitence and prayer. Go! for I have forgiven thee; and I would not curse thee now."

"I defy thy curses, witch of hell!" cried the cripple with frantic energy. "Already the first pale streaks of dawn begin to flicker in the east. A little time, and thy power to curse will be no more; a little time, and nothing will remain of thee but a heap of noisome ashes; and a name, which will be mingled with that of the arch-enemy of mankind, in the execrations of thy victims—a name to be remembered with horror and disgust—as that of the foul serpent—in the thoughts of the tormented cripple, and of the pure angel of brightness, upon whom thou hast sought to work evil and death."

"O God! make not this hour of trial too hard for me to bear!" exclaimed the unhappy woman; and then, raising her clasped hands to Claus in bitter expostulation, she cried, "Man! what have I done to harm thee, that thou shouldst heap these coals of fire on my soul?"

"What thou hast done to harm me?" cried the witchfinder. "Hast thou not tormented my poor cripple limbs with thy infernal spells? Hast thou not caused me to suffer the tortures of the damned? But it is not vengeance that I seek. No—no. I have vowed a holy vow—I have sworn to spend my life in the good task of purging from the earth such workers of evil as thou, and those who served the fiend by their foul sorceries, were it even at the risk of exposing my body to pain and suffering, and even death, from the revengeful malice of their witchcrafts. And God knows I have suffered in the holy cause."

And the cripple clenched again within his right hand, the image attached to the rosary in his bosom, as if to satisfy himself by its contact of the truth and right of those deeds, which he strove to qualify as holy.

"What thou, or such as thou, have done to harm me!" he continued with bitter spite. "I will tell thee, hag! I was once a young and happy boy. I was strong and well-favoured then. I had a father—a passionate but a kind man; and I had a mother, whom I loved beyond all created things. She was the joy of my soul—the pride of my boyish dreams. I was happy then, I tell thee. I called myself by another name. No matter what it was. Black Claus is the avenger's name, and he will cleave to it. One day there came an aged beggar-woman to our cottage, and begged. My mother heeded her not. I know not why; for she was ever kind. My father drove her from the door; and, as she turned away, she cursed us all. I never can forget that moment, nor the terror of my youthful mind, as I heard that curse. And the curse clave to us; for she—was a witch; and it came upon us soon and bitterly. My mother was in the pride of her beauty still, when a gay noble saw her in her loveliness, and paid her court. Then came a horrible night, when the witch's curse was fearfully fulfilled. My father was jealous. He attacked the young noble as he came by the darkness of night; and it was he—my father—who was killed. I saw him die, weltering in his blood. My poor mother, too, was spirited away; the fell powers of witchcraft dragged her from that bloody hearth. Yes; witchcraft it was—it must have been; for she was too pure and good to listen to the voice of the seducer—to follow her husband's murderer. She died, probably, of grief—my poor wretched mother; for I never saw her more. For days and nights I sought her, but in vain; suffering cold and hunger, and sleeping oft-times in the cold woods and dank morasses. Then fell the witches curse on me also; and I began to suffer these pains, which thy foul tribe have never ceased to inflict upon me since. The tortures of the body were added to the tortures of the mind. My limbs grew distorted and withered. I became the outcast of humanity I now am; and then it was I vowed a vow to pursue, even unto death, all those hideous lemans of Satan, who, like her who cursed us, sell their wretched souls but to work evil, and destruction, and death to their fellow-creatures. And I have kept my vow!"

In spite of herself, Magdalena had been obliged to listen to the witchfinder's tale, which, with his face pressed against the iron bars of the grating, he poured, with harsh voice, into her unwilling ear. As he proceeded, however, she appeared fascinated by the words he uttered, as the poor quivering bird is fascinated by the serpent's eye. Her eyeballs were distended—her arms still outstretched towards him, as she had first raised them to him in her cry of expostulation; but the hands were desperately clenched together—the arms stiffened with the extreme tension of the nerves.

"Oh no!" she murmured to herself as he yet spoke; "that were too horrible!" and when he paused, it was with a smothered scream of agony, still mixed with doubt, that she cried "Karl!"

"Karl!" repeated the witchfinder, clenching the bars with still firmer grasp, and raising himself with the effort to the full height of his stature, as though his limbs had on a sudden recovered all their strength—"Karl! Ay, that was my name! How dost thou know it, woman?"

"O God!" exclaimed the wretched tenant of the cell, "was my cup of bitterness not yet full? Hast thou reserved me this?" She wrung her hands in agony, and then, looking again at the cripple, cried in a tone of concentrated misery, "Karl! they told me that thou wast dead—that thou, too, hadst died after that night of horrors!"

"Who art thou, woman?" cried the cripple again, with an accent of horror, as if a frightful thought had for the first time forced itself upon his brain. "Who art thou, that thou speakest to me thus, and freezest the very marrow of my bones with fear? Who art thou that criest 'Karl' with such a voice—a voice that now comes back upon my ear, as if it were a damning memory of times gone by? Who art thou woman?—speak! Let not this dreadful thought, that blasts me like lightning, strike me utterly to the earth."

"Who I am?" sobbed the miserable woman. "Thy wretched and guilty mother, Karl!"

"Guilty!" shouted the cripple. "Then thou art not she! My mother was not guilty—she was all innocence and truth!"

"I am thy guilty mother, Karl," repeated the kneeling woman, "who has striven, by long years of penitence and prayer, to expiate the past. Alas, in vain! for Heaven refuses the expiation, since it has reserved the wretched penitent this last, most fearful blow of all!"