c, Baron de Raunay, guilty of heresy, of the crime of
_lese-majeste_, and assault with armed hand against the person of the
king."

A tall handsome man mounted the scaffold with a firm step, bowed to the
people and the court, and said:

"That sentence lies. I took arms to deliver the king from his enemies,
the Guises."

He placed his head on the block, and it fell. The Reformers chanted:--

"Thou, O God! hast proved us;
Thou hast tried us;
As silver is tried in the fire,
So hast thou purified us."

"Robert-Jean-Rene Briquemart, Comte de Villemongis, guilty of the crime
of _lese-majeste_, and of attempts against the person of the king!"
called the clerk.

The count dipped his hands in the blood of the Baron de Raunay, and
said:--

"May this blood recoil upon those who are really guilty of those
crimes."

The Reformers chanted:--

"Thou broughtest us into the snare;
Thou laidest afflictions upon our loins;
Thou hast suffered our enemies
To ride over us."

"You must admit, monseigneur," said the Prince de Conde to the papal
nuncio, "that if these French gentlemen know how to conspire, they also
know how to die."

"What hatreds, brother!" whispered the Duchesse de Guise to the Cardinal
de Lorraine, "you are drawing down upon the heads of our children!"

"The sight makes me sick," said the young king, turning pale at the flow
of blood.

"Pooh! only rebels!" replied Catherine de' Medici.

The chants went on; the axe still fell. The sublime spectacle of men
singing as they died, and, above all, the impression produced upon the
crowd by the progressive diminution of the chanting voices, superseded
the fear inspired by the Guises.

"Mercy!" cried the people with one voice, when they heard the solitary
chant of the last and most important of the great lords, who was saved
to be the final victim. He alone remained at the foot of the steps by
which the others had mounted the scaffold, and he chanted:--

"Thou, O God, be merciful unto us,
And bless us,
And cause thy face to shine upon us.
Amen!"

"Come, Duc de Nemours," said the Prince de Conde, weary of the part he
was playing; "you who have the credit of the skirmish, and who helped
to make these men prisoners, do you not feel under an obligation to ask
mercy for this one? It is Castelnau, who, they say, received your word
of honor that he should be courteously treated if he surrendered."

"Do you think I waited til