d:

"I degraded him in interceding with thee for him." He continued, raising
the tapestry which separated his apartment from that of his friend,
"Come, and doubt, if thou canst, devotion and the immortality of the
soul. Compare the uneasiness and misery of thy triumph with the calmness
of our defeat, the meanness of thy reign with the grandeur of our
captivity, thy sanguinary vigils to the slumbers of the just."

A solitary lamp threw its light on De Thou. The young man was kneeling
on a cushion, surmounted by a large ebony crucifix. He seemed to have
fallen asleep while praying. His head, inclining backward, was still
raised toward the cross. His pale lips wore a calm and divine smile.

"Holy Father, how he sleeps!" exclaimed the astonished Capuchin,
thoughtlessly uniting to his frightful discourse the sacred name he
every day pronounced. He suddenly retired some paces, as if dazzled by a
heavenly vision.

"Nonsense, nonsense!" he said, shaking his head, and passing his hand
rapidly over his face. "All this is childishness. It would overcome me
if I reflected on it. These ideas may serve as opium to produce a calm.
But that is not the question; say yes or no."

"No," said Cinq-Mars, pushing him to the door by the shoulder. "I will
not accept life; and I do not regret having compromised De Thou, for
he would not have bought his life at the price of an assassination. And
when he yielded at Narbonne, it was not that he might escape at Lyons."

"Then wake him, for here come the judges," said the furious Capuchin, in
a sharp, piercing voice.

Lighted by flambeaux, and preceded by a detachment of the Scotch guards,
fourteen judges entered, wrapped in long robes, and whose features were
not easily distinguished. They seated themselves in silence on the right
and left of the huge chamber. They were the judges delegated by the
Cardinal to judge this sad and solemn affair--all true men to the
Cardinal Richelieu, and in his confidence, who from Tarascon had chosen
and instructed them. He had the Chancellor Seguier brought to Lyons, to
avoid, as he stated in the instructions he sent by Chavigny to the King
Louis XIII--"to avoid all the delays which would take place if he were
not present. M. de Mayillac," he adds, "was at Nantes for the trial of
Chulais, M. de Chateau-Neuf at Toulouse, superintending the death of M.
de Montmorency, and M. de Bellievre at Paris, conducting the trial of M.
de Biron. The authority and intellig