Page:The Writings of Prosper Merimee-Volume 6.djvu/32

2 A CHRONICLE OF THE glass beads, plays the part fairly well, and gives an almost venerable air to Claude Giraut's cabaret.

More than two centuries ago, to wit, in 1572, the function of this building was, as now, to receive thirsty travellers; but at that time its appearance was altogether different. The walls were covered with inscriptions bearing witness to the varying incidents of a civil war. By the side of "Long Live the Prince!"* you read "Long Live the Duke of Guise—Death to the Huguenots! " A little further a soldier had drawn with charcoal a gallows and its burden, adding below, for fear of mistakes, the inscription, "Gaspard de Chatillon." Yet it would appear that the Protestants had later had the upper hand in these quarters, for the name of their chief had been struck out and replaced by that of Guise. Other legends, half rubbed out, difficult to read, and still more difficult to translate decorously, showed that the King and his mother had met with no more respect than these partisan chiefs. But the poor Madonna herself seemed to have had most to suffer from political and religious frenzy. The statue, chipped by bullets in twenty places, proved the zeal of the Huguenot soldiery in defacing what they

The Prince of Conde.