“You are wrong to accuse the queen; she has nothing to do with the orders of the court. Come, madame, I beg you to spare me the necessity of violence, and kneel down.”
“Never!” and she planted herself firmly in a corner of the room.
The registrar then signed to the two other men, who, approaching, seized her, and in spite of her cries dragged her into the middle of the room. But she bounded up again.
“Let me stand,” said she, “and I will listen patiently.”
“Madame, whenever criminals are punished by whipping, they kneel to receive the sentence.”
“Whipping!” screamed Jeanne; “miserable wretch, how dare you——”
The men forced her on her knees once more, and held her down, but she struggled so furiously that they called out, “Read quickly, monsieur, for we cannot hold her.”
“I will never hear such an infamous sentence,” she cried; and indeed she drowned his voice so effectually with her screams, that although he read, not a word could be heard.
He replaced his papers in his pocket, and she, thinking he had finished, stopped her cries. Then he said, “And the sentence shall be executed at the place of executions, Cour de Justice.”
“Publicly!” screamed she.