ns; the
executioner, having no time to tie up the victim, hastened to lay him
on the wood, and to set fire to it. But the rain still fell in torrents,
and each piece of wood had no sooner caught the flame than it became
extinguished. In vain did Lactantius and the other canons themselves
seek to stir up the fire; nothing could overcome the water which fell
from heaven.

Meanwhile, the tumult which had begun in the peristyle of the church
extended throughout the square. The cry of "Justice!" was repeated
and circulated, with the information of what had been discovered; two
barricades were forced, and despite three volleys of musketry, the
archers were gradually driven back toward the centre of the square. In
vain they spurred their horses against the crowd; it overwhelmed them
with its swelling waves. Half an hour passed in this struggle, the
guards still receding toward the pile, which they concealed as they
pressed closer upon it.

"On! on!" cried a man; "we will deliver him; do not strike the soldiers,
but let them fall back. See, Heaven will not permit him to die! The
fire is out; now, friend, one effort more! That is well! Throw down that
horse! Forward! On!"

The guard was broken and dispersed on all sides. The crowd rushed to
the pile, but no more light was there: all had disappeared, even the
executioner. They tore up and threw aside the beams; one of them
was still burning, and its light showed under a mass of ashes and
ensanguined mire a blackened hand, preserved from the fire by a large
iron bracelet and chain. A woman had the courage to open it; the fingers
clasped a small ivory cross and an image of St. Magdalen.

"These are his remains," she said, weeping.

"Say, the relics of a martyr!" exclaimed a citizen, baring his head.

CHAPTER VI. THE DREAM

Meanwhile, Cinq-Mars, amid the excitement which his outbreak had
provoked, felt his left arm seized by a hand as hard as iron, which,
drawing him from the crowd to the foot of the steps, pushed him behind
the wall of the church, and he then saw the dark face of old Grandchamp,
who said to him in a sharp voice:

"Sir, your attack upon thirty musketeers in a wood at Chaumont was
nothing, because we were near you, though you knew it not, and,
moreover, you had to do with men of honor; but here 'tis different. Your
horses and people are at the end of the street; I request you to mount
and leave the town, or to send me back to Madame la Marechale, for