He had been in torment in the past, but he had refused to see that he was in Hades.

Now it was as though he had been led through the streets of Hell by some dark spirit, while in vain he looked round for his old friends Kant and Hegel, Voltaire and Rousseau and Rochefoucauld, Plato and Aristotle.
While gazing at the dismal scene, however, and unheeding the idlers who poked about among the ruins, and watched him as one who was the centre of a drama, he suddenly caught sight of the gold Cock of Beaugard, which had stood on the top of the mill, in the very centre of the ruins.
Yes, there it was, the crested golden cock which had typified his own life, as he went head high, body erect, spurs giving warning, and a clarion in his throat ready to blare forth at any moment.

There was the golden Cock of Beaugard in the cinders, the ashes and the dust.

His chin dropped on his breast, and a cloud like a fog on the coast of Gaspe settled round him.

Yet even as his head drooped, something else happened--one of those trivial things which yet may be the pivot of great things.