Romulart. About them surged ever more fiercely the angry
populace, drunk with the hot wine of destruction, having been filled
with inconceivable fury by that which they had seen in the round tower
wherein stood the filled bags of little charred remains.

"Tear the wolves into gobbets! Kill them! Burn them! Send them quick
to Hell!" So ran the cry.

And twice and thrice the villagers of the Pays de Retz charged
desperately as men who fight for their lives.

"Stand to it, men!" cried Pierre de l'Hopital. "Gilles de Retz shall
have fair trial!

"_But I shall try him!_" he added, under his breath.

Never was seen such a sight as the procession which conducted Gilles
de Retz to the city of Nantes. The Duke had sent for his whole band of
soldiers, and these, in ordered companies, marched in front and rear.
A triple file guarded the prisoners, and even their levelled pikes
could scarce beat back the furious rushes of the populace.

It was like a civil war, for the assailants struck fiercely at the
soldiers--as if in protecting him, they became accessory to the crimes
of the hated marshal.

"_Barbe Bleu! Barbe Bleu!_" they cried. "Slay _Barbe Bleu_! Make his
beard blood-red. He hath dipped it often in the life-blood of our
children. Now we will redden it with his own!"

So ran the tumult, surging and gathering and scattering. And ever the
pikes of the guard flashed, and the ordered files shouldered a path
through the press.

"Make way there!" cried the provost marshals. "Make way for the
prisoners of the Duke!"

And as they entered the city, from behind and before, from all the
windows and roofs, rose the hoarse grunting roar of the hatred and
cursing of a whole people.

But the object of all this rested calm and unmoved, and his cruel grey
eye had no expression in it save a certain tolerant and amused
contempt.

"Bah!" he muttered. "Would that I had slain ten millions of you! It is
my only regret that I had not the time. It is almost unworthy to die
for a few score children!"

During the journey to Nantes, Gilles de Retz kept the grand reserve
with which, when he came to himself, he had treated those who had
captured him. To the Duke only would he condescend to reply, and to
him he rather spoke as an equal unjustly treated than as a guilty
prisoner and suppliant.

"For this, Sire of Brittany," he said, "must you answer to your
overlord, the King of France, whose minister and marshal I am!"

The Duke would