| CHAPTER I |
| CHAPTER II |
| CHAPTER III |
| CHAPTER IV |
| CHAPTER V |
| CHAPTER VI |
| CHAPTER VII |
| CHAPTER VIII |
| CHAPTER IX |
| CHAPTER X |
| CHAPTER XI |
| CHAPTER XII |
| CHAPTER XIII |
| CHAPTER XIV |
| CHAPTER XV |
| CHAPTER XVI |
| CHAPTER XVII |
During the severe winter of 1860 the river Oise was frozen over and the plainsof Lower Picardy were covered with deep snow. On Christmas Day, especially, aheavy squall from the north-east had almost buried the little city of Beaumont.The snow, which began to fall early in the morning, increased towards eveningand accumulated during the night; in the upper town, in the Rue des Orfèvres,at the end of which, as if enclosed therein, is the northern front of thecathedral transept, this was blown with great force by the wind against theportal of Saint Agnes, the old Romanesque portal, where traces of Early Gothiccould be seen, contrasting its florid ornamentation with the bare simplicity ofthe transept gable.
The inhabitants still slept, wearied by the festive rejoicings of the previousday. The town-clock struck six. In the darkness, which was slightly lightenedby the slow, persistent fall of flakes, a vague living form alone was visible:that of a little girl, nine years of age, who, having taken refuge under thearchway of the portal, had passed the night there, shivering, and shelteringherself as well as possible. She wore a thin woollen dress, ragged from longuse, her head was covered with a torn silk handkerchief, and on her bare feetwere heavy shoes much too large for her. Without doubt she had only gone thereafter having well wandered through the town, for she had fallen down from sheerexhaustion. For her it was the end of the world; there was no longer anythingto interest her. It was the last surrender; the hunger that gnaws, the coldwhich kills; and in her weakness, stifled by the heavy weight at her heart, sheceased to struggle, and nothing was left to her but the instinctive movement ofpreservation, the desire of changing place, of sinking still deeper into theseold stones, whenever a sudden gust made the snow whirl about her.
Hour after hour passed. For a long time, between the divisions of this doubledoor, she leaned her back against the abutting pier, on whose column was astatue of Saint Agnes, the martyr of but thirteen years of age, a little girllike herself, who carried a branch of palm, and at whose feet was a lamb. Andin the tympanum, above the li