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 about eleven or twelve hundred men, were ranged [says the
journal of Montresor] in the midst of the Place des Terreaux, so as
to enclose a space of about eighty paces each way, into which they
admitted no one but those who were absolutely necessary.

"In the centre of this space was raised a scaffold about seven feet
high and nine feet square, in the midst of which, somewhat forward,
was placed a stake three feet in height, in front of which was a
block half a foot high, so that the principal face of the scaffold
looked toward the shambles of the Terreaux, by the side of