rm, on the right by the
executioner's assistant. Thus proceeding, she first felt embarrassment
and confusion. Ten or twelve people were waiting outside, and as she
suddenly confronted them, she made a step backward, and with her hands,
bound though they were, pulled the headdress down to cover half her
face. She passed through a small door, which was closed behind her, and
then found herself between the two doors alone, with the doctor and
the executioner's man. Here the rosary, in consequence of her violent
movement to cover her face, came undone, and several beads fell on the
floor. She went on, however, without observing this; but the doctor
stopped her, and he and the man stooped down and picked up all the
beads, which they put into her hand. Thanking them humbly for this
attention, she said to the man, "Sir, I know I have now no worldly
possessions, that all I have upon me belongs to you, and I may not give
anything away without your consent; but I ask you kindly to allow me to
give this chaplet to the doctor before I die: you will not be much the
loser, for it is of no value, and I am giving it to him for my sister.
Kindly let me do this."

"Madame," said the man, "it is the custom for us to get all the property
of the condemned; but you are mistress of all you have, and if the thing
were of the very greatest value you might dispose of it as you pleased."

The doctor, whose arm she held, felt her shiver at this gallantry, which
for her, with her natural haughty disposition, must have been the worst
humiliation imaginable; but the movement was restrained, and her face
gave no sign. She now came to the porch of the Conciergerie, between the
court and the first door, and there she was made to sit down, so as to
be put into the right condition for making the 'amende honorable'. Each
step brought her nearer to the scaffold, and so did each incident cause
her more uneasiness. Now she turned round desperately, and perceived
the executioner holding a shirt in his hand. The door of the vestibule
opened, and about fifty people came in, among them the Countess of
Soissons, Madame du Refuge, Mlle. de Scudery, M. de Roquelaure, and
the Abbe de Chimay. At the sight the marquise reddened with shame, and
turning to the doctor, said, "Is this man to strip me again, as he did
in the question chamber? All these preparations are very cruel; and, in
spite of myself, they divert my thoughts, from God."

Low as her voice was, the exec