The steel had made the bark, the sapwood, and even the core of the tree, fly in shivers; but the oak had resumed its impassive attitude, and bore stoically the assaults of the workmen.

Looking upward, as it reared its proud and stately head, one would have affirmed that it never could fall.

Suddenly the woodsmen fell back; there was a moment of solemn and terrible suspense; then the enormous trunk heaved and plunged down among the brushwood with an alarming crash of breaking branches.

A sound as of lamentation rumbled through the icy forest, and then all was still.
The men, with unconscious emotion, stood contemplating the monarch oak lying prostrate on the ground.

Reine had turned pale; her dark eyes glistened with tears.
"Let us go," murmured she to Julien; "this death of a tree affects me as if it were that of a Christian." They took leave of the woodsmen, and reentered the forest.