"Albert Edmond Roger, Comte de Mazères, guilty of heresy, of the crime of lèse-majesté, and of attacking with arms in his hand the person of the king."
"'T is false!" cried the Comte de Mazères from the scaffold.
Then, showing to the people his blackened arms and his breast all bruised by the torture, he continued: "See the condition to which I have been reduced in the king's name! But I know that he knows nothing of it; and so I still cry, Vive le roi!"
His head fell. The last three Protestants who were awaiting their turns at the foot of the scaffold sang again the first verse of the psalm,—
"Dieu nous soit doux et favorable,
Nous bénissant par sa bonté,
Et de son visage adorable
Nous fasse luire sa clarté."[6]
The clerk's voice was heard once more,—
"Jean Louis Alberic, Baron de Raunay, guilty of heresy, of the crime of lèse-majesté, and of attacking with arms in his hand the person of the king."
"You lie like two clowns, you and your cardinal," said De Raunay; "it is only against him and his brother that we took up arms. I hope they may both meet death as peacefully and as pure in heart as I."
Thereupon he laid his head upon the block.
The last two condemned men sang on,—