functionaries were essentially different in their appearance and
manners. Louis used to call them Democritus and Heraclitus, and their master,
the Provost, termed them, Jean-qui-pleure, and Jean-qui-rit.
    Trois-Eschelles was a tall, thin, ghastly man, with a peculiar gravity of
visage, and a large rosary round his neck, the use of which he was accustomed
piously to offer to those sufferers on whom he did his duty. He had one or two
Latin texts continually in his mouth on the nothingness and vanity of human
life; and, had it been regular to have enjoyed such a plurality, he might have
held the office of confessor to the jail in commendam with that of executioner.
Petit-André, on the contrary, was a joyous-looking, round, active, little
fellow, who rolled about in execution of his duty as if it were the most
diverting occupation in the world. He seemed to have a sort of fond affection
for his victims, and always spoke of them in kindly and affectionate terms. They
were his poor honest fellows, his pretty dears, his gossips, his good old
fathers, as their age or sex might be; and as Trois-Eschelles endeavoured to
inspire them with a philosophical or religious regard to futurity, Petit-André
seldom failed to refresh them with a jest or two, as if to induce them to pass
from life as something that was ludicrous, contemptible, and not worthy of
serious consideration.
    I cannot tell why or wherefore it was, but these two excellent persons,
notwithstanding the variety of their talents, and the rare occurrence of such
among persons of their profession, were both more utterly detested than perhaps
any creatures of their kind, whether before or since; and the only doubt of
those who knew aught of them was, whether the grave and pathetic
Trois-Eschelles, or the frisky, comic, alert Petit-André was the object of the
greatest fear, or of the deepest execration. It is certain they bore the palm in
both particulars over every hangman in France, unless it were perhaps their
master, Tristan l'Hermite, the renowned Provost-Marshal, or his master, Louis
XI.15
    It must not be supposed that these reflections were of Quentin Durward's
making. Life, death, time, and eternity, were swimming before his eyes - a
stunning and overwhelming prospect, from which human nature recoiled in its
weakness; though human pride would fain have borne up. He addressed himself to
the God of his fathers; and when he did so, the