om she firmly
believed all her sins to be washed away and blotted out from the
remembrance of His wrath.

As she was uttering the words, "Lord, receive the soul that has been
redeemed by Thy goodness," she fell upon her face to the ground.

Then the miscreant dealt her several thrusts, and when she had lost both
power of speech and strength of body, and was no longer able to make any
defence, he ravished her.(4)

4 Brantome, in his account of Mary Queen of Scots, quotes
this story. After mentioning that the headsman remained
alone with the Queen's decapitated corpse, he adds: "He then
took off her shoes and handled her as he pleased. It is
suspected that he treated her in the same way as that
miserable muleteer, in the Hundred Stories of the Queen of
Navarre, treated the poor woman he killed. Stranger
temptations than this come to men. After he (the
executioner) had done as he chose, the (Queen's) body was
carried into a room adjoining that of her servants."
Lalanne's _OEuvres de Brantome_, vol. vii. p. 438.--M.

Having thus satisfied his wicked lust, he fled in haste, and in spite of
all pursuit was never seen again.

The little girl, who was in bed with the muleteer's wife, had hidden
herself under the bed in her fear; but on seeing that the man was gone,
she came to her mistress. Finding her to be without speech or movement,
she called to the neighbours from the window for aid; and as they loved
and esteemed her mistress as much as any woman that belonged to the
town, they came forthwith, bringing surgeons with them. The latter
found that she had received twenty-five mortal wounds in her body, and
although they did what they could to help her, it was all in vain.

Nevertheless she lingered for an hour longer without speaking, yet
making signs with eye and hand to show that she had not lost her
understanding. Being asked by a priest in what faith she died, she
answered, by signs as plain as any speech, that she placed her hope of
salvation in Jesus Christ alone; and so with glad countenance and eyes
upraised to heaven her chaste body yielded up its soul to its Creator.

Just as the corpse, having been laid out and shrouded,(5) was placed
at the door to await the burial company, the poor husband arrived and
beheld his wife's body in front of his house before he had even received
tidings of her death. He inquired the cause of this, and found that he
had dou