The same as she had scorned too deeply, she loved too fondly.
"Alas!" the king said to his confessor, "to think that I love so dearly and am loved so much."
In their last interview, the queen seemed to yield to a feeling akin to remorse. When she found that she could not be alone with her lord, she drew him into a window recess, where she would have fallen on her knees at his feet; but he understood that she wanted to ask his forgiveness, so he stayed her and drew his will from his pocket to show her the lines:
"I pray my wife to forgive all the woes I have led her to suffer and the sorrows caused her in the course of our union, as she may be sure that I cherish no ill feeling toward her, if she should think that she had reason to blame herself in any way."
Marie kissed his hands, for while there was full pardon, there was great delicacy, too, in the rest of the phrase.
So this royal Magdalen might die tranquil, late as came her love for her husband, it won her divine and human mercy, and her pardon was bestowed on earth, not in a mysterious whisper as an indulgence, of which the king felt ashamed, but openly and publicly.
Who would reproach her who went toward posterity with the double crown of the martyr and her husband's forgiveness?
The poignant farewell lasted nearly two hours before the condemned went out to his priest.
As day began to break, the drums were beaten throughout the town; the bustle and the sound penetrated the old tower and chilled the blood of the priest and Clery.
At nine o'clock the noise increased and the doors were loudly flung open. Santerre came in, followed by town officers and soldiers, who formed a double row.