that winter of the great siege of Chartres, the morning on which the
child Guy Debreschescourt died in his sleep. His tiny body--the
placid, massive, baby head still one broad smile, the rest of him
wrapped round together like a chrysalis--was put to rest finally, in
a fold of the winding-sheet of a very aged person, deceased at the
same hour.

For a hard winter, like that famous winter of 1567, the hardest that
had been known for fifty years, makes an end of the weak--the aged,
the very young. To the robust, how pleasant had the preparation for
it seemed--the scent of the first wood-fire upon the keen October
air; the earth turning from grey to black under the plough; the great
stacks of fuel, come down lazily from the woods of Le Perche, along
the winding Eure; its wholesome perfume; the long, soothing nights,
and early twilight. The mind of Gaston, for one, was touched by the
sense of some remote and delicate beauty in these things, like
magicians' work, like an effect of magic as being extorted from
unsuspected sources.

What winter really brought however, was the danger and vexation of a
great siege. The householders of catholic Chartres had watched the
forces of their Huguenot enemies gathering from this side and that;
and at last the dreaded circle was complete. They were prisoners
like [46] the rest, Gaston and the grandparents, shut up in their
little hotel; and Gaston, face to face with it, understood at last
what war really means. After all, it took them by surprise. It was
early in the day. A crowd of worshippers filled the church of
Sainte-Foy, built partly upon the ramparts; and at the conclusion of
the mass, the Sacrament was to be carried to a sick person. Touched
by unusual devotion at this perilous time, the whole assembly rose to