they are
wise and just, these grave and salaried criminals! O crime, the horror
of Heaven! If you looked upon them from above as I look upon them, you
would be yet paler than I am. Flesh destroys flesh! That which lives
by blood sheds blood coldly and without anger, like a God with power to
create!'"

The cries which the unhappy girl uttered, as she rapidly spoke these
words, terrified Richelieu and Laubardemont so much that they still
remained motionless. The delirium and the fever continued to transport
her.

"'Did the judges tremble?' said Urbain Grandier to me. 'Did they tremble
at deceiving themselves?' They work the work of the just. The question!
They bind his limbs with ropes to make him speak. His skin cracks, tears
away, and rolls up like a parchment; his nerves are naked, red, and
glittering; his bones crack; the marrow spurts out. But the judges
sleep! they dream of flowers and spring. 'How hot the grand chamber is!'
says one, awaking; 'this man has not chosen to speak! Is the torture
finished?' And pitiful at last, he dooms him to death--death, the sole
fear of the living! death, the unknown world! He sends before him a
furious soul which will wait for him. Oh! has he never seen the vision
of vengeance? Has he never seen before falling asleep the flayed
prevaricator?"

Already weakened by fever, fatigue, and grief, the Cardinal, seized with
horror and pity, exclaimed:

"Ah, for the love of God, let this terrible scene have an end! Take away
this woman; she is mad!"

The frantic creature turned, and suddenly uttering loud cries, "Ah, the
judge! the judge! the judge!" she said, recognizing Laubardemont.

The latter, clasping his hands and trembling before the Cardinal, said
with terror:

"Alas, Monseigneur, pardon me! she is my niece, who has lost her reason.
I was not aware of this misfortune, or she would have been shut up long
ago. Jeanne! Jeanne! come, Madame, to your knees! ask forgiveness of
Monseigneur the Cardinal-duc."

"It is Richelieu!" she cried; and astonishment seemed wholly to paralyze
this young and unhappy beauty. The flush which had animated her at first
gave place to a deadly pallor, her cries to a motionless silence,
her wandering looks to a frightful fixedness of her large eyes, which
constantly followed the agitated minister.

"Take away this unfortunate child quickly," said he; "she is dying, and
so am I. So many horrors pursue me since that sentence that I believe
all hell