morrow you can go to
Dravet; you will have time, for in seven or eight hours from now there
will be nothing more to do for me, and I shall be in the gentleman's
hands; you will not be allowed near me. After then, you can go away for
good; for I don't suppose you will have the heart to see me executed."
All this she said quite calmly, but not with pride. From time to time
her people tried to hide their tears, and she made a sign of pitying
them. Seeing that the dinner was on the table and nobody eating, she
invited the doctor to take some soup, asking him to excuse the cabbage in
it, which made it a common soup and unworthy of his acceptance. She
herself took some soup and two eggs, begging her fellow-guests to excuse
her for not serving them, pointing out that no knife or fork had been set
in her place.

When the meal was almost half finished, she begged the doctor to let her
drink his health. He replied by drinking hers, and she seemed to be
quite charmed by, his condescension. "To-morrow is a fast day," said
she, setting down her glass, "and although it will be a day of great
fatigue for me, as I shall have to undergo the question as well as death,
I intend to obey the orders of the Church and keep my fast."

"Madame," replied the doctor, "if you needed soup to keep you up, you
would not have to feel any scruple, for it will be no self-indulgence,
but a necessity, and the Church does not exact fasting in such a case."

"Sir," replied the marquise, "I will make no difficulty about it, if it
is necessary and if you order it; but it will not be needed, I think: if
I have some soup this evening for supper, and some more made stronger
than usual a little before midnight, it will be enough to last me through
to-morrow, if I have two fresh eggs to take after the question."

"In truth," says the priest in the account we give here, "I was alarmed
by this calm behaviour. I trembled when I heard her give orders to the
concierge that the soup was to be made stronger than usual and that she
was to have two cups before midnight. When dinner was over, she was
given pen and ink, which she had already asked for, and told me that she
had a letter to write before I took up my pen to put down what she wanted
to dictate." The letter, she explained, which was difficult to write,
was to her husband. She would feel easier when it was written. For her
husband she expressed so much affection, that the doctor, knowing what
had pass