Mme. Longuet wanted to run away, but in her fright she fell. When she arose the cries had ceased. M. Eliphaste commanded her to be quiet, recalling to her with a severe look her responsibility in the operation.
M. Théophraste now reposed peacefully on his strap-mattress. That peacefulness, following immediately the horrors of such suffering, was extraordinary. He was not in pain. He remembered none of it. After the torturing was over he ceased to think of it, and consequently this was how he could reply to M. Eliphaste in the intervals of torture, in the most natural way, without physical emotion.
M. Eliphaste again began to interrogate him:
“And now where are you, Cartouche?”
“I am still in the torture chamber. Ah! they hold me! They hold me tightly! They hold my arms! What are they going to do? The man in the center says, ‘By order of the Regent we must have the names. So much the worse if he dies for it! Are the tongs ready? Begin with the breasts!.. Oh! Oh! The man kneeling before the burning coals gets up, making a noise with the irons. He hands the red tongs to the executioner. They uncover my right breast! Oh! Oh! It is dreadful! I cannot live through it!”
CHAPTER XX
In the Charnel House
THE recital which follows is the integral reproduction of what came out of the mouth of Théophraste while plunged in hypnotic sleep, from the moment that he submitted to the torture until he died. This part is of the highest importance, not only for the experimental spirit of science, but for history, for it destroys the legend of the wheel and shows to us, in an indisputable fashion, the real death of Cartouche. I have not found this part stored in the oaken chest, but in the papers and statements which have been read in the Spiritual Congress of 1889. It is all from M. Eliphaste’s hand.