e loved her," said some.

"So good a lady!" cried the women.

Pity began to predominate. Cold water was thrown upon Grandier, without
his being taken from the court, and he was tied to his seat. The
Judge-Advocate went on:

"We are directed to read the beginning of this book to the court," and he
read as follows:

"'It is for thee, dear and gentle Madeleine, in order to set at rest
thy troubled conscience, that I have described in this book one
thought of my soul. All those thoughts tend to thee, celestial
creature, because in thee they return to the aim and object of my
whole existence; but the thought I send thee, as 'twere a flower,
comes from thee, exists only in thee, and returns to thee alone.

"'Be not sad because thou lovest me; be not afflicted because I
adore thee. The angels of heaven, what is it that they do? The
souls of the blessed, what is it that is promised them? Are we less
pure than the angels? Are our souls less separated from the earth
than they will be after death? Oh, Madeleine, what is there in us
wherewith the Lord can be displeased? Can it be that we pray
together, that with faces prostrate in the dust before His altars,
we ask for early death to take us while yet youth and love are ours?
Or that, musing together beneath the funereal trees of the
churchyard, we yearned for one grave, smiling at the idea of death,
and weeping at life? Or that, when thou kneelest before me at the
tribunal of penitence, and, speaking in the presence of God, canst
find naught of evil to reveal to me, so wholly have I kept thy soul
in the pure regions of heaven? What, then, could offend our
Creator? Perhaps--yes! perhaps some spirit of heaven may have
envied me my happiness when on Easter morn I saw thee kneeling
before me, purified by long austerities from the slight stain which
original sin had left in thee! Beautiful, indeed, wert thou! Thy
glance sought thy God in heaven, and my trembling hand held His
image to thy pure lips, which human lip had never dared to breathe
upon. Angelic being! I alone participated in the secret of the
Lord, in the one secret of the entire purity of thy soul; I it was
that united thee to thy Creator, who at that moment descended also
into my bosom. Ineffable espousals, of which the Eternal himself
was the priest, you alone were permitted between the virgin and her
pastor! the sole joy