"My Lord Duke," said the Chancellor, "you have heard the sentence of your peers, and it must now be executed. The King commands me to demand the insignia of that noble order to which you once belonged."
"There, sir, take it!" cried the Duke, giving him his star and riband. "Tell the King, that though he treat me thus, I have never broken one statute of the order to which my deeds in his service raised me. Pshaw!" he continued, turning from the priest, who now pressed him to confess--"I make my confession aloud. All my words are my confession.--Still," he added, as his eye rested for a moment on the scaffold and all the awful preparation for his fate, "still, I may as well think awhile of where I am going."
He then spoke for a few minutes with the priest who stood by his side. His countenance grew calmer and graver; and after having received absolution and the sacrament, he looked for a brief space up towards the sky, then knelt down before the scaffold, and prayed for same time, while a dead silence was maintained around--you might have heard a feather fall. As he still knelt, the sun broke out, and shone calmly and sweetly over the whole array of death, while a bird in the neighbouring garden, wakened by the sunshine and the deep stillness, broke into a clear, shrill, joyful song, with the most painful music that ever struck the ear.
The prisoner started on his feet, and, after looking round for an instant, mounted the scaffold with the same bold step wherewith he had approached it. His eyes, however, still had in them that sort of wild, ferocious gleam, which they had exhibited ever since his arrest; and though he seemed to strive for calmness, and displayed not a touch of fear, yet there was an angry spirit in his tone as he addressed those around him. "I have wronged the King," he said, sharply, "I have wronged the King. 'Tis better to acknowledge it. But that I ever sought his life is a lie and perjury. Had I listened to evil counsel, he would have been dead ten years ago. Ah! my old friends and fellow-soldiers," he added, turning to the guards, "why will none of you fire your piece into my heart, instead of leaving me to the vile hands of this common butcher?" And he pointed to the executioner. "Touch me not," he continued, seeing the other approach him with a handkerchief to bind his eyes--"touch me not with those hellish fingers, or, by heavens, I will tear you limb from limb! Give me the handkerchief."
He then cast his hat away from him, and bound his own eyes--knelt--prayed again for a moment--rose suddenly up as the executioner was about to draw the sword--withdrew the covering from his sight--gazed wildly round him for an instant, and beckoned one of the officers to tie up his long hair under the handkerchief. This was immediately done, and his eyes being covered, he called out, "Haste! haste!"
"Repeat the In manus, my lord," said the executioner, taking the heavy sword, which had hitherto been concealed by the attendants.
Biron began to repeat the psalm of the dying--the blade glittered in the air--swayed round the head of the executioner; and before the eye could trace the blow which ended the earthly career of the unfortunate but guilty soldier, his head was severed at once from his body, and Biron was no more.
A feeling of intense and painful interest had kept St. Maurice at the window till the moment that the unhappy soldier covered his own eyes with the handkerchief; but then a sensation of giddy sickness forced him away, and he cast himself down once more, with bitterer feelings than ever at his heart. The world seemed all a hell of cares and sorrows, and he could have died that moment with hardly a regret. After he had lain there for nearly two hours, he once more rose, and approached the window. The crowd were all gone, but the dark scaffold still remained, and the young soldier drew back again, saying to himself, "Who next? who next?" He lay down and tried to sleep, but his throbbing temples and his heated blood rendered the effort vain. Strange wild images rose up before his eyes. Fiends and foul shapes where grinning at him in the air. Fire seemed circling through his veins, and burning his heart; he talked; with no one to hear--he raved--he struggled--and then came a long term of perfect forgetfulness, at the end of which he woke as from a profound sleep.
He was weak as a child, and his ideas of the past were but faint and confused. The first thing, however, that returned to memory was the image of his cell, and he cast his heavy eyes around, in search of the bolts, and bars, and grated windows; but no such things were near. He was in a small but handsome room, with the open lattice admitting the breath of many flowers, and by his side sat an old and reverend dame, whom he had never seen before. A few faint but coherent words, and the light of intelligence re-awakened in his eye, showed the nurse, for such she was, that the fever had left him, and going out of the chamber, she returned with a soldier-like man, whom St. Maurice at once remembered as the old Count de Belin, who had arrested him at Bourg. Many words of comfort and solace were spoken by the old soldier, but St. Maurice was forbidden to utter a syllable, or ask a question, for several days. A physician, too, with grave and solemn face, visited him twice each day, and gave manifold cautions and warnings as to his treatment, which the young gentleman began soon to think unnecessary, as the firm calm pulse of health grew fuller and fuller in his frame. At length one day, as he lay somewhat weary of restraint, the door opened, and Henry IV. himself stood by his bed-side. "New, faith, my good young Count," said the monarch, "I had a hearty mind to keep you to silence and thin bouillon for some days longer, to punish certain rash words spoken in the Bastile, casting a stigma upon royal gratitude for leaving faithful friends, who had lost all in our behalf, to poverty and want. But I have lately heard all your story, and more of it than you thought I ever would hear; and therefore, though I shall take care that there be no more reproaches against my gratitude, as a punishment for your crimes, I shall sell you as a slave for ever. Come hither, sweet taskmaster," he added, raising his voice, "and be sure you do all that woman can--and that is no small power--to tease this youth through all his life to come."
As the King spoke, the flutter of a woman's robe--the bright, dear eyes--the sweet, all-graceful form,--the bland glad smile of her he loved, burst upon the young soldier's sight; and she, forgetting fear, timidity, the presence of royalty--all, all but love, sprang forward at once, and bedewed his bosom with her happy tears.