into holes in the walls on which the planks were laid,--a frail
construction, shaken by the brick-layers, but held together by ropes,
white with plaster, and insecurely protected from the wheels of
carriages by the breastwork of planks which the law requires round all
such buildings. There is something maritime in these masts, and
ladders, and cordage, even in the shouts of the masons. About a dozen
yards from the hotel Maulincour, one of these ephemeral barriers was
erected before a house which was then being built of blocks of
free-stone. The day after the event we have just related, at the
moment when the Baron de Maulincour was passing this scaffolding in
his cabriolet on his way to see Madame Jules, a stone, two feet square,
which was being raised to the upper storey of this building, got loose
from the ropes and fell, crushing the baron's servant who was behind
the cabriolet. A cry of horror shook both the scaffold and the masons;
one of them, apparently unable to keep his grasp on a pole, was in
danger of death, and seemed to have been touched by the stone as it
passed him.

A crowd collected rapidly; the masons came down the ladders swearing
and insisting that Monsieur de Maulincour's cabriolet had been driven
against the boarding and so had shaken their crane. Two inches more
and the stone would have fallen on the baron's head. The groom was
dead, the carriage shattered. 'Twas an event for the whole
neighborhood, the newspapers told of it. Monsieur de Maulincour,
certain that he had not touched the boarding, complained; the case
went to court. Inquiry being made, it was shown that a small boy,
armed with a lath, had mounted guard and called to all foot-passengers
to keep away. The affair ended there. Monsieur de Maulincour obtained
no redress. He had lost his servant, and was confined to his bed for
some days, for the back of the carriage when shattered had bruised him