o one subject, to
which, however, I would return later, giving the matter a new appearance
and disguising it a little. She spoke little and well, with no sign
of learning and no affectation, always, mistress of herself, always
composed and saying just what she intended to say. No one would have
supposed from her face or from her conversation that she was so wicked
as she must have been, judging by her public avowal of the parricide. It
is surprising, therefore--and one must bow down before the judgment of
God when He leaves mankind to himself--that a mind evidently of some
grandeur, professing fearlessness in the most untoward and unexpected
events, an immovable firmness and a resolution to await and to endure
death if so it must be, should yet be so criminal as she was proved to
be by the parricide to which she confessed before her judges. She had
nothing in her face that would indicate such evil. She had very abundant
chestnut hair, a rounded, well-shaped face, blue eyes very pretty and
gentle, extraordinarily white skin, good nose, and no disagreeable
feature. Still, there was nothing unusually attractive in the face:
already she was a little wrinkled, and looked older than her age.
Something made me ask at our first interview how old she was.
'Monsieur,' she said, 'if I were to live till Sainte-Madeleine's day I
should be forty-six. On her day I came into the world, and I bear her
name. I was christened Marie-Madeleine. But near to the day as we
now are, I shall not live so long: I must end to-day, or at latest
to-morrow, and it will be a favour to give me the one day. For this
kindness I rely on your word.' Anyone would have thought she was quite
forty-eight. Though her face as a rule looked so gentle, whenever an
unhappy thought crossed her mind she showed it by a contortion that
frightened one at first, and from time to time I saw her face twitching
with anger, scorn, or ill-will. I forgot to say that she was very little
and thin. Such is, roughly given, a description of her body and mind,
which I very soon came to know, taking pains from the first to observe
her, so as to lose no time in acting on what I discovered."

As she was giving a first brief sketch of her life to her confessor,
the marquise remembered that he had not yet said mass, and reminded him
herself that it was time to do so, pointing out to him the chapel of the
Conciergerie. She begged him to say a mass for her and in honour of
Our Lady, so that