She judged it prudent to be more stern to her accomplice than the executioners themselves.
The sixth and seventh wedges were driven in without a word of complaint from Christophe. His face shone with extraordinary brilliancy, due, no doubt, to the excess of strength which his fanatic devotion gave him. Where else but in the feelings of the soul can we find the power necessary to bear such sufferings? Finally, he smiled when he saw the executioner lifting the eighth and last wedge. This horrible torture had lasted by this time over an hour.
The clerk now went to call the physician that he might decide whether the eighth wedge could be driven in without endangering the life of the victim. During this delay the duke returned to look at Christophe.
“Ventre-de-biche! you are a fine fellow,” he said to him, bending down to whisper the words. “I love brave men. Enter my service, and you shall be rich and happy; my favors shall heal those wounded limbs. I do not propose to you any baseness; I will not ask you to return to your party and betray its plans,—there are always traitors enough for that, and the proof is in the prisons of Blois; tell me only on what terms are the queen-mother and the Prince de Conde?”
“I know nothing about it, monseigneur,” replied Christophe Lecamus.
The physician came, examined the victim, and said that he could bear the eighth wedge.
“Then insert it,” said the cardinal. “After all, as the queen says, he is only a heretic,” he added, looking at Christophe with a dreadful smile.
At this moment Catherine came with slow steps from the adjoining apartment and stood before Christophe, coldly observing him. Instantly she was the object of the closest attention on the part of the two brothers, who watched alternately the queen and her accomplice. On this solemn test the whole future of that ambitious woman depended; she felt the keenest admiration for Christophe, yet she gazed sternly at him; she hated the Guises, and she smiled upon them!
“Young man,” said the queen, “confess that you have seen the Prince de Conde, and you will be richly rewarded.”
“Ah! what a business this is for you, madame!” cried Christophe, pitying her.