recognize them? Your
mother, your sisters, and your brother."

And the day, now fairly broken, showed him in the distance several women
waving their handkerchiefs; and there, dressed all in black, stretching
out her arms toward the prison, sustained by those about her, Cinq-Mars
recognized his mother, with his family, and his strength failed him for
a moment. He leaned his head upon his friend's breast and wept.

"How many times must I, then, die?" he murmured; then, with a gesture,
returning from the top of the tower the salutations of his family, "Let
us descend quickly, my father!" he said to the old Abbe. "You will tell
me at the tribunal of penitence, and before God, whether the remainder
of my life is worth my shedding more blood to preserve it."

It was there that Cinq-Mars confessed to God what he alone and Marie
de Mantua knew of their secret and unfortunate love. "He gave to his
confessor," says Father Daniel, "a portrait of a noble lady, set in
diamonds, which were to be sold, and the money employed in pious works."

M. de Thou, after having confessed, wrote a letter;--[See the copy of
this letter to Madame la Princesse de Guemenee, in the notes at the
end of the volume.]--after which (according to the account given by his
confessor) he said, "This is the last thought I will bestow upon this
world; let us depart for heaven!" and walking up and down the room with
long strides, he recited aloud the psalm, 'Miserere mei, Deus', with an
incredible ardor of spirit, his whole frame trembling so violently it
seemed as if he did not touch the earth, and that the soul was about
to make its exit from his body. The guards were mute at this spectacle,
which made them all shudder with respect and horror.

Meanwhile, all was calm in the city of Lyons, when to the great
astonishment of its inhabitants, they beheld the entrance through
all its gates of troops of infantry and cavalry, which they knew were
encamped at a great distance. The French and the Swiss guards,
the regiment of Pompadours, the men-at-arms of Maurevert, and the
carabineers of La Roque, all defiled in silence. The cavalry, with their
muskets on the pommel of the saddle, silently drew up round the chateau
of Pierre-Encise; the infantry formed a line upon the banks of the Saone
from the gate of the fortress to the Place des Terreaux. It was the
usual spot for execution.

"Four companies of the bourgeois of Lyons, called 'pennonage', of
which abo