rous confession from the accused, when
the obscurity which surrounded the church suddenly ceased. Its two
great doors were thrown open; and by the light of an infinite number
of flambeaux, appeared all the judges and ecclesiastics, surrounded by
guards. Among them was Urbain, supported, or rather carried, by six men
clothed as Black Penitents--for his limbs, bound with bandages saturated
with blood, seemed broken and incapable of supporting him. It was at
most two hours since Cinq-Mars had seen him, and yet he could hardly
recognize the face he had so closely observed at the trial. All color,
all roundness of form had disappeared from it; a livid pallor covered
a skin yellow and shining like ivory; the blood seemed to have left his
veins; all the life that remained within him shone from his dark eyes,
which appeared to have grown twice as large as before, as he looked
languidly around him; his long, chestnut hair hung loosely down his neck
and over a white shirt, which entirely covered him--or rather a sort
of robe with large sleeves, and of a yellowish tint, with an odor of
sulphur about it; a long, thick cord encircled his neck and fell upon
his breast. He looked like an apparition; but it was the apparition of a
martyr.

Urbain stopped, or, rather, was set down upon the peristyle of the
church; the Capuchin Lactantius placed a lighted torch in his right
hand, and held it there, as he said to him, with his hard inflexibility:

"Do penance, and ask pardon of God for thy crime of magic."

The unhappy man raised his voice with great difficulty, and with his
eyes to heaven said:

"In the name of the living God, I cite thee, Laubardemont, false judge,
to appear before Him in three years. They have taken away my confessor,
and I have been fain to pour out my sins into the bosom of God Himself,
for my enemies surround me. I call that God of mercy to witness I never
have dealt in magic. I have known no mysteries but those of the Catholic
religion, apostolic and Roman, in which I die; I have sinned much
against myself, but never against God and our Lord--"

"Cease!" cried the Capuchin, affecting to close his mouth ere he could
pronounce the name of the Saviour. "Obdurate wretch, return to the demon
who sent thee!"

He signed to four priests, who, approaching with sprinklers in their
hands, exorcised with holy water the air the magician breathed, the
earth he touched, the wood that was to burn him. During this ceremony,