the torture of her accomplices. All the rest of this vision was
persecution, flight, exile, remorse, punishments from God and curses from
the world. Around her was a frightful solitude: husbands, lovers,
kindred, friends, all were dead; all she had loved or hated in the world
were now no more; her joy, pain, desire, and hope had vanished for ever.
The poor queen, unable to free herself from these visions of woe,
violently tore herself away from the awful reverie, and kneeling at a
prie-dieu, prayed with fervour. She was still beautiful, in spite of her
extreme pallor; the noble lines of her face kept their pure oval; the
fire of repentance in her great black eyes lit them up with superhuman
brilliance, and the hope of pardon played in a heavenly smile upon her
lips.

Suddenly the door of the room where Joan was so earnestly praying opened
with a dull sound: two Hungarian barons in armour entered and signed to
the queen to follow them. Joan arose silently and obeyed; but a cry of
pain went up from her heart when she recognised the place where both
Andre and Charles of Durazzo had died a violent death. But she collected
her forces, and asked calmly why she was brought hither. For all answer,
one of the men showed her a cord of silk and gold....

"May the will of a just God be done!" cried Joan, and fell upon her
knees. Some minutes later she had ceased to suffer.

This was the third corpse that was thrown over the balcony at Aversa.

THE MAN IN THE IRON MASK [An Essay]

(This is the essay entitled The Man in the Iron Mask, not the novel
"The Man in the Iron Mask" [The Novel] Dumas #28[nmaskxxx.xxx]2759])

For nearly one hundred years this curious problem has exercised the
imagination of writers of fiction--and of drama, and the patience of the
learned in history. No subject is more obscure and elusive, and none
more attractive to the general mind. It is a legend to the meaning of
which none can find the key and yet in which everyone believes.
Involuntarily we feel pity at the thought of that long captivity
surrounded by so many extraordinary precautions, and when we dwell on the
mystery which enveloped the captive, that pity is not only deepened but a
kind of terror takes possession of us. It is very likely that if the
name of the hero of this gloomy tale had been known at the time, he would
now be forgotten. To give him a name would be to relegate him at once to
the ranks of those commonplac