danger. The adventure was too perilous, too impossible not to be
attempted and carried out.

Suddenly all the bells in the town rang out the curfew,--a custom
fallen elsewhere into desuetude, but still observed in the provinces,
where venerable habits are abolished slowly. Though the lights were
not put out, the watchmen of each quarter stretched the chains across
the streets. Many doors were locked; the steps of a few belated
burghers, attended by their servants, armed to the teeth and bearing
lanterns, echoed in the distance. Soon the town, garroted as it were,
seemed to be asleep, and safe from robbers and evil-doers, except
through the roofs. In those days the roofs of houses were much
frequented after dark. The streets were so narrow in the provincial
towns, and even in Paris, that robbers could jump from the roofs on
one side to those on the other. This perilous occupation was long the
amusement of King Charles IX. in his youth, if we may believe the
memoirs of his day.

Fearing to present himself too late to the old silversmith, the young
nobleman now went up to the door of the Malemaison intending to knock,
when, on looking at it, his attention was excited by a sort of vision,
which the writers of those days would have called "cornue,"--perhaps
with reference to horns and hoofs. He rubbed his eyes to clear his
sight, and a thousand diverse sentiments passed through his mind at
the spectacle before him. On each side of the door was a face framed
in a species of loophole. At first he took these two faces for
grotesque masks carved in stone, so angular, distorted, projecting,
motionless, discolored were they; but the cold air and the moonlight
presently enabled him to distinguish the faint white mist which living
breath sent from two purplish noses; then he saw in each hollow face,