Thereupon, some took turn after turn with a pocket-knife to cheat the slaughterers.
In the midst of this dreadful ante-chamber of death, one woman in deep mourning was kneeling in prayer and smiling.
It was the Countess of Charny.
Two hours yet passed before she was called as "Citizeness Andrea of Taverney, previously known as the Countess of Charny."
At the name, Gilbert felt his legs yield under him and his heart weaken.
A life, more important than his own, was to be debated, tried, and doomed or spared.
"Citizens," said Maillard, "the person about to appear before you is a poor woman who was devoted formerly to the Austrian, but with truly royal ingratitude, she paid her with sorrow; to that friendship she gave all—her property and her husband. You will see her come in, dressed in mourning, which she owes to the prisoner in the temple. Citizens, I ask you for the life of this woman."
The bench of judges nodded; but one said the prisoner ought to appear before them.
"Then, look," said the chief.
The door opening, they saw in the corridor depths a woman clad wholly in black, with her head crowned with a black veil, who walked forward alone without support, with a steady step. She seemed an apparition from another world, at the sight of which even those justices shuddered.