The queen quivered.
“He insults me!” she exclaimed. “Why do you not hang him?” she cried, turning to the two brothers, who stood thoughtful.
“What a woman!” said the duke in a glance at his brother, consulting him by his eye, and leading him to the window.
“I shall stay in France and be revenged upon them,” thought the queen. “Come, make him confess, or let him die!” she said aloud, addressing Montresor.
The provost-marshal turned away his eyes, the executioners were busy with the wedges; Catherine was free to cast one glance upon the martyr, unseen by others, which fell on Christophe like the dew. The eyes of the great queen seemed to him moist; two tears were in them, but they did not fall. The wedges were driven; a plank was broken by the blow. Christophe gave one dreadful cry, after which he was silent; his face shone,—he believed he was dying.
“Let him die?” said the cardinal, echoing the queen’s last words with a sort of irony; “no, no! don’t break that thread,” he said to the provost.
The duke and the cardinal consulted together in a low voice.
“What is to be done with him?” asked the executioner.
“Send him to the prison at Orleans,” said the duke, addressing Monsieur de Montresor; “and don’t hang him without my order.”
The extreme sensitiveness to which Christophe’s internal organism had been brought, increased by a resistance which called into play every power of the human body, existed to the same degree, in his senses. He alone heard the following words whispered by the Duc de Guise in the ear of his brother the cardinal: