“The woman breaks the eggs, fries the omelette, and dishes it up without any more grumbling; somehow this squabble began to make her feel very uncomfortable.  Her husband sits down and begins to eat.  The hunchback was frightened, and said that she was not hungry.

“‘Tap! tap!’ There was a stranger rapping at the door.

“‘Who is there?’

“‘The man that died yesterday!’

“‘Come in,’ answers the hemp-grower.

“So the traveler comes in, sits himself down on a three-legged stool, and says:  ’Are you mindful of God, who gives eternal peace to those who confess His Name?  Woman!  You saw me done to death, and you have said nothing!  I have been eaten by the pigs!  The pigs do not enter Paradise, and therefore I, a Christian man, shall go down into hell, all because a woman forsooth will not speak, a thing that has never been known before.  You must deliver me,’ and so on, and so on.

“The woman, who was more and more frightened every minute, cleaned her frying-pan, put on her Sunday clothes, went to the justice, and told him about the crime, which was brought to light, and the robbers were broken on the wheel in proper style on the Market Place.  This good work accomplished, the woman and her husband always had the finest hemp you ever set eyes on.  Then, which pleased them still better, they had something that they had wished for for a long time, to-wit, a man-child, who in course of time became a great lord of the king’s.

“That is the true story of The Courageous Hunchback Woman.

“I do not like stories of that sort; they make me dream at night,” said La Fosseuse.  “Napoleon’s adventures are much nicer, I think.”

“Quite true,” said the keeper.  “Come now, M. Goguelat, tell us about the Emperor.”

“The evening is too far gone,” said the postman, “and I do not care about cutting short the story of a victory.”

“Never mind, let us hear about it all the same!  We know the stories, for we have heard you tell them many a time; but it is always a pleasure to hear them.”

“Tell us about the Emperor!” cried several voices at once.

“You will have it?” answered Goguelat.  “Very good, but you will see that there is no sense in the story when it is gone through at a gallop.  I would rather tell you all about a single battle.  Shall it be Champ-Aubert, where we ran out of cartridges, and furbished them just the same with the bayonet?”

“No, the Emperor! the Emperor!”

The old infantry man got up from his truss of hay and glanced round about on those assembled, with the peculiar sombre expression in which may be read all the miseries, adventures, and hardships of an old soldier’s career.  He took his coat by the two skirts in front, and raised them, as if it were a question of once more packing up the knapsack in which his kit, his shoes, and all he had in the world used to be stowed; for a moment he stood leaning all his weight on his left foot, then he swung the right foot forward, and yielded with a good grace to the wishes of his audience.  He swept his gray hair to one side, so as to leave his forehead bare, and flung back his head and gazed upwards, as if to raise himself to the lofty height of the gigantic story that he was about to tell.