d sacrilege, that I know no other
magic than that of the Holy Scriptures, which I have always preached, and
that I have never held any other belief than that of our Holy Mother the
Catholic Apostolic Church of Rome; I renounce the devil and all his
works; I confess my Redeemer, and I pray to be saved through the blood of
the Cross; and I beseech you, messeigneurs, to mitigate the rigour of my
sentence, and not to drive my soul to despair."

The concluding words led de Laubardemont to believe that he could obtain
some admission from Grandier through fear of suffering, so he ordered the
court to be cleared, and, being left alone with Maitre Houmain, criminal
lieutenant of Orleans, and the Franciscans, he addressed Grandier in a
stern voice, saying there was only one way to obtain any mitigation of
his sentence, and that was to confess the names of his accomplices and to
sign the confession. Grandier replied that having committed no crime he
could have no accomplices, whereupon Laubardemont ordered the prisoner to
be taken to the torture chamber, which adjoined the judgment hall--an
order which was instantly obeyed.

CHAPTER XI

The mode of torture employed at Loudun was a variety of the boot, and one
of the most painful of all. Each of the victim's legs below the knee was
placed between two boards, the two pairs were then laid one above the
other and bound together firmly at the ends; wedges were then driven in
with a mallet between the two middle boards; four such wedges constituted
ordinary and eight extraordinary torture; and this latter was seldom
inflicted, except on those condemned to death, as almost no one ever
survived it, the sufferer's legs being crushed to a pulp before he left
the torturer's bands. In this case M. de Laubardemont on his own
initiative, for it had never been done before, added two wedges to those
of the extraordinary torture, so that instead of eight, ten were to be
driven in.

Nor was this all: the commissioner royal and the two Franciscans
undertook to inflict the torture themselves.

Laubardemont ordered Grandier to be bound in the usual manner, I and then
saw his legs placed between the boards. He then dismissed the
executioner and his assistants, and directed the keeper of the
instruments to bring the wedges, which he complained of as being too
small. Unluckily, there were no larger ones in stock, and in spite of
threats the keeper persisted in saying he did not know where