"What is the meaning of this gathering?" inquired Christian from a man of athletic carriage, with the sleeves of his shirt turned up, a blood-bespattered apron and a long knife by his side.
"St. James!" exclaimed the butcher in a tone of pious satisfaction; "the reverend Franciscan fathers of the Cour-Dieu have been struck by a good idea."
"In what way?" again Christian asked. "What is their idea? Inform us of what is going on."
"The good monks have placed upon the square in front of the door of their convent a lighted chapel at the foot of a beautiful station of the Holy Virgin, and a mendicant monk stands on either side of the statue, with a club in one hand and a purse in the other—"
"And what is the purpose of the chapel and the mendicant monks and their clubs?"
"St. James!" and the butcher crossed himself; "thanks to that chapel the Lutheran dogs can be discovered as they pass by."
"How can they be recognized?"
"If they pass before the chapel without kneeling down at the feet of the Holy Virgin, and without dropping a piece of money into the purse of the mendicant monks, it is a proof that the painim are heretics—they are immediately set upon, they are slain, they are torn to shreds. Listen! Do you hear that?"
Indeed, at that moment, piercing shrieks half drowned by an angry roar of many voices went up from the interior of the Cour-Dieu. As the turnstile allowed a passage to only one person at a time, the approaches of the square were blocked by a crowd that swelled from moment to moment and that was swayed with the ardent desire to witness the Test of the Lutherans, as the process was called. Every time that the cries of a victim ceased, the clamor subsided, and the mob awaited the next execution. The butcher resumed:
"That painim has ceased to scream—his account is settled. May the fire of St. Anthony consume those laggards who are getting so slowly through the gate! I shall not be able to witness the killing of a single one of those accursed fellows!"