d, inclining backward, was still raised
toward the cross. His pale lips wore a calm and divine smile.

"Holy Father, how he sleeps!" exclaimed the astonished Capuchin,
thoughtlessly uniting to his frightful discourse the sacred name he every
day pronounced. He suddenly retired some paces, as if dazzled by a
heavenly vision.

"Nonsense, nonsense!" he said, shaking his head, and passing his hand
rapidly over his face. "All this is childishness. It would overcome me if
I reflected on it. These ideas may serve as opium to produce a calm. But
that is not the question; say yes or no."

"No," said Cinq-Mars, pushing him to the door by the shoulder. "I will
not accept life; and I do not regret having compromised De Thou, for he
would not have bought his life at the price of an assassination. And when
he yielded at Narbonne, it was not that he might escape at Lyons."

"Then wake him, for here come the judges," said the furious Capuchin, in
a sharp, piercing voice.

Lighted by flambeaux, and preceded by a detachment of the Scotch guards,
fourteen judges entered, wrapped in long robes, and whose features were
not easily distinguished. They seated themselves in silence on the right
and left of the huge chamber. They were the judges delegated by the
Cardinal to judge this sad and solemn affair--all true men to the
Cardinal Richelieu, and in his confidence, who from Tarascon had chosen
and instructed them. He had the Chancellor Seguier brought to Lyons, to
avoid, as he stated in the instructions he sent by Chavigny to the King
Louis XIII--"to avoid all the delays which would take place if he were
not present. M. de Mayillac," he adds, "was at Nantes for the trial of
Chulais, M. de Chateau-Neuf at Toulouse, superintending the death of M.
de Montmorency, and M. de Bellievre at Paris, conducting the trial of M.
de Biron. The authority and intelligence of these gentlemen in forms of
justice are indispensable."

The Chancellor arrived with all speed. But at this moment he was informed
that he was not to appear, for fear that he might be influenced by the
memory of his ancient friendship for the prisoner, whom he only saw
tete-a-tete. The commissioners and himself had previously and rapidly
received the cowardly depositions of the Duc d'Orleans, at Villefranche,
in Beaujolais, and then at Vivey,--[House which belonged to an Abbe
d'Esnay, brother of M. de Villeroy, called Montresor.] two miles from
Lyons, where this wretched prince ha