I!--a wretched, vile Cagot!--I should die with pity if I saw one of my executioners in the state to which they have reduced me!' "'My father, my dear father, calm yourself,' said Raymond, with tender affection; 'your son, at least, is left you.' "'No, no,' cried the old man, passionately;'my son is not left me; my son is dead; he was torn in pieces by the mill-wheel of Orthez.

I am not your father; you are not--you never were, you never can be--my son; this is the first word of the secret I have to tell you.' "'What do you tell me!' cried Raymond, in amazement! 'Your disavowal was not, then, a deception, prompted by paternal affection! What! are you not my father?
and was that generous creature, sacrificed for my sake, indeed your son!' "'He was my child, my only child! the only living being attached to me by the ties of blood--the only creature who would have listened to my last agonized sigh at my hour of death.

And see what was his fate, for me! I allowed him to venture for my sake amongst the ferocious people; see to what an end his devotion and gratitude to you had led him!' So saying, the unfortunate old man uncovered the mutilated remains of his unfortunate son, rescued from the stream, and transported to the spot by the compassionate care of Arnauton d'Espaigne.

The body lay on a rustic couch, enveloped in a white shroud, which is always, according to the usage of the country, prepared long before death, a taper of yellow wax shed its feeble rays on the corpse'." The grief and lamentations of Guilhem are interrupted by the rites which then take place; the men wringing their hands, and gesticulating, and cursing the cruelty of the world: the women weeping and wailing; and one of those endowed with poetical powers, improvising a lament over the body, uttering her words in a melancholy cadence, deeply expressive of the grief of all.
"'Alas, Gratien!' she moaned; 'thou hast then left us! thou hast deserted thy aged father--gone without a pressure of the hand! Gratien, may God receive thy soul! To live is to suffer.

Life is like the wheel by which thou wert torn.