nce substituted the gallows for the decapitation decreed by the
first judge, inasmuch as the latter punishment was reserved for criminals
of noble birth, while hanging was inflicted on meaner persons.

When once his fate was decided, Arnauld du Thill lost all his audacity.
Sent back to Artigues, he was interrogated in prison by the judge of
Rieux, and confessed his imposture at great length. He said the idea
first occurred to him when, having returned from the camp in Picardy, he
was addressed as Martin Guerre by several intimate friends of the latter.
He then inquired as to the sort of life, the habits and relations of,
this man, and having contrived to be near him, had watched him closely
during the battle. He saw him fall, carried him away, and then, as the
reader has already seen, excited his delirium to the utmost in order to
obtain possession of his secrets. Having thus explained his successful
imposture by natural causes, which excluded any idea of magic or sorcery,
he protested his penitence, implored the mercy of God, and prepared
himself for execution as became a Christian.

The next day, while the populace, collecting from the whole
neighbourhood, had assembled before the parish church of Artigues in
order to behold the penance of the criminal, who, barefoot, attired in a
shirt, and holding a lighted torch in his hand, knelt at the entrance of
the church, another scene, no less painful, took place in the house of
Martin Guerre. Exhausted by her suffering, which had caused a premature
confinement, Bertrande lay on her couch of pain, and besought pardon from
him whom she had innocently wronged, entreating him also to pray for her
soul. Martin Guerre, sitting at her bedside, extended his hand and
blessed her. She took his hand and held it to her lips; she could no
longer speak. All at once a loud noise was heard outside: the guilty man
had just been executed in front of the house. When finally attached to
the gallows, he uttered a terrible cry, which was answered by another
from inside the house. The same evening, while the body of the
malefactor was being consumed by fire, the remains of a mother and child
were laid to rest in consecrated ground.

ALI PACHA

CHAPTER I

The beginning of the nineteenth century was a time of audacious
enterprises and strange vicissitudes of fortune. Whilst Western Europe
in turn submitted and struggled against a sub-lieutenant who made himself
an emperor