on himself, and would not give the
name of one of his accomplices.

Condemned to be beheaded, he was executed on the following day. In
spite of the rain, he desired to walk to the place of execution. When he
reached the scaffold, he ascended the steps with a firm tread, and, of
his own accord, placed his head upon the block.

A few seconds later, the rebellion of the 4th of March counted its
twenty-first victim.

And that same evening the people everywhere were talking of the
magnificent rewards which were to be bestowed upon the Duc de Sairmeuse
and the Marquis de Courtornieu; and it was also asserted that the
nuptials of the children of these great houses were to take place before
the close of the week.

CHAPTER XXXIV

That Martial de Sairmeuse was to marry Mlle. Blanche de Courtornieu did
not surprise the inhabitants of Montaignac in the least.

But spreading such a report, with Lacheneur's execution fresh in the
minds of everyone, could not fail to bring odium upon these men who had
held absolute power, and who had exercised it so mercilessly.

Heaven knows that M. de Courtornieu and the Duc de Sairmeuse were now
doing their best to make the people of Montaignac forget the atrocious
cruelty of which they had been guilty during their dictatorship.

Of the hundred or more who were confined in the citadel, only
eighteen or twenty were tried, and they received only some very slight
punishment; the others were released.

Major Carini, the leader of the conspirators in Montaignac, who had
expected to lose his head, heard himself, with astonishment, sentenced
to two years' imprisonment.

But there are crimes which nothing can efface or extenuate. Public
opinion attributed this sudden clemency on the part of the duke and the
marquis to fear.

People execrated them for their cruelty, and despised them for their
apparent cowardice.

They were ignorant of this, however, and hastened forward the
preparations for the nuptials of their children, without suspecting that
the marriage was considered a shameless defiance of public sentiment on
their part.

The 17th of April was the day which had been appointed for the bridal,
and the wedding-feast was to be held at the Chateau de Sairmeuse, which,
at a great expense, had been transformed into a fairy palace for the
occasion.

It was in the church of the little village of Sairmeuse, on the
loveliest of spring days, that this marriage ceremony was performed by
t