I thought of the Florentine children at the altar steps.
Mr. Andrew Lang is of the opinion that if an historical event could be discredited, like a ghost story, by discrepancies in the evidence, we might maintain that Darnley was never murdered at all. We might also be led to doubt the existence of Cardinal Balue's cage, that ingenious torture-chamber which has added so largely and so deservedly to the reputation of Louis the Eleventh. There is a drawing of the cage, or rather of a cage, still to be seen, and there is the bill for its making;—what a prop to history are well-kept household accounts!—while, on the other hand, its ubiquitous nature staggers our trusting faith. Loches claims it as one of her traditions, and so does Plessis-les-Tours. Loches is so rich in horrors that she can afford to dispense with a few; but the cage, if it ever existed at all, was undoubtedly one of the permanent decorations of her tower. The room in which it hung is cheerful and commodious when compared to the black prison of Saint Valier, or to the still deeper dungeon of the Bishops of Puy and
