50 THE BIRTH OF PICCIOLA. 



V. 



THE BIRTH OF PICCIOLA. 1 



ONE day, at the usual hour, De Charney was 

 walking in the courtyard of his prison, his eyes 

 cast down, his arms crossed behind him. He was 

 pacing slowly step by step, as if thus he could 

 enlarge the narrow space permitted to him. 



Spring was approaching ; he breathed a sweeter 

 air, and to be free, master of the earth and of 

 space, seemed to him an object of desire. 



He counted one by one the stones of the little 

 courtyard, perhaps to verify former calculations, 

 for it was not the first time that he had numbered 

 them, when he saw at his feet a small mound of 

 earth, slightly cleft at the summit, thrown up 

 between two paving-stones. He stooped, and his 

 heart beat quickly, without his knowing why. 

 Everything is an object of hope or fear to the 



1 Translated from the French of Joseph Xavier Saintine. " Picciola," 

 Chap. III. Picciola (signifying " dear little one ") is the name given 

 by Count de Cliarney, a political prisoner of Napoleon in the fortress 

 of Fenestrella, to a plant which had sown itself in the courtyard of his 

 prison. 



