. 'You who said, "Love one
another," you cursed Nazarene!' cried one; 'see now how you are loved!'

'You who said, "Share your bread and your cloak with him who has neither
bread nor cloak," the worthy executioners follow their precepts; they
share paternally their rods to break them across your back.'

'You who said, "That it was more easy for a camel to pass through the
eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven,"
don't you think it will be easier for you to pass through the eye of a
needle than to escape the rod with which they warm your back?'

'You who glorified vagabonds, thieves, prostitutes, and such like game;
no doubt you loved the wretches, because you knew you should one day be
flogged like them, great prophet!'

Genevieve, despite her repugnance to see the punishment of Jesus, not
hearing him utter a cry of complaint, feared that he had swooned from
the pain, and looked at him with eyes full of anguish! Alas! to her it
was a horrible spectacle.

The back of the young man was one large bleeding wound, interrupted
simply by some blue and swollen furrows; at these places only the skin
had not been broken. Jesus turned his face to heaven, and closed his
eyes, to escape, no doubt, the sight of this implacable crowd. His face,
livid and bathed in sweat, betrayed a horrible suffering at each fresh
stroke cutting into his living flesh. And yet, at times, he still
attempted to smile with angelic resignation. The high priest, the
doctors of the law, the senators, and all the wicked pharisees, followed
with a triumphant and greedy regard the execution of the punishment.

Amongst the most rancorous in feasting on this torture, Genevieve
remarked Doctor Baruch, Caiphus, and Jonas, the banker.

The executioners began to tire of flogging; they had broken on the back
of Jesus, nearly all their rods; they questioned, by a look, Doctor
Baruch, as if to ask him if it were not time to put an end to the
torture; but the doctor of law exclaimed: 'No, no; use up, even to the
very last of your rods.'

The order of the pharisee was obeyed; the last rods were broken on the
shoulders of the young Nazarene, and splashed with blood the faces of
the executioners; it was no longer the skin they flagellated, but a
bloody wound. The martyrdom now became so atrocious that Jesus, despite
his courage, gave way, and dropped his head on his left shoulder; his
knees trembled, and he would have fallen to the ground