of
death."

The priest inclined his head as a sign of assent.

So the marquise communicated thus, taking a sacrament that she shared
with one of her murderers, as an evidence that she forgave this one like
the others and that she prayed God to forgive them as she herself did.

The following days passed without any apparent increase in her illness,
the fever by which she was consumed rather enhancing her beauties, and
imparting to her voice and gestures a vivacity which they had never had
before. Thus everybody had begun to recover hope, except herself, who,
feeling better than anyone else what was her true condition, never for a
moment allowed herself any illusion, and keeping her son, who was seven
years old, constantly beside her bed, bade him again and again look well
at her, so that, young as he was, he might remember her all his life and
never forget her in his prayers. The poor child would burst into tears
and promise not only to remember her but also to avenge her when he was a
man. At these words the marquise gently reproved him, telling him that
all vengeance belonged to the king and to God, and that all cares of the
kind must be left to those two great rulers of heaven and of earth.

On the 3rd of June, M. Catalan, a councillor, appointed as a
commissioner by the Parliament of Toulouse, arrived at Ganges, together
with all the officials required by his commission; but he could not see
the marquise that night, for she had dozed for some hours, and this sleep
had left a sort of torpor upon her mind, which might have impaired the
lucidity of her depositions. The next morning, without asking anybody's
opinion, M. Catalan repaired to the house of M. Desprats, and in spite
of some slight resistance on the part of those who were in charge of her,
made his way to the presence of the marquise. The dying woman received
him with an admirable presence of mind, that made M. Catalan think there
had been an intention the night before to prevent any meeting between him
and the person whom he was sent to interrogate. At first the marquise
would relate nothing that had passed, saying that she could not at the
same time accuse and forgive; but M. Catalan brought her to see that
justice required truth from her before all things, since, in default of
exact information, the law might go astray, and strike the innocent
instead of the guilty. This last argument decided the marquise, and
during the hour and a half that he