"Stand to it, men!" cried Pierre de l'Hopital. "Gilles de Retz shall have fair trial!
"But I shall try him!" he added, under his breath.
Never was seen such a sight as the procession which conducted Gilles de Retz to the city of Nantes. The Duke had sent for his whole band of soldiers, and these, in ordered companies, marched in front and rear. A triple file guarded the prisoners, and even their levelled pikes could scarce beat back the furious rushes of the populace.
It was like a civil war, for the assailants struck fiercely at the soldiers—as if in protecting him, they became accessory to the crimes of the hated marshal.
"Barbe Bleu! Barbe Bleu!" they cried. "Slay Barbe Bleu! Make his beard blood-red. He hath dipped it often in the life-blood of our children. Now we will redden it with his own!"
So ran the tumult, surging and gathering and scattering. And ever the pikes of the guard flashed, and the ordered files shouldered a path through the press.
"Make way there!" cried the provost marshals. "Make way for the prisoners of the Duke!"
And as they entered the city, from behind and before, from all the windows and roofs, rose the hoarse grunting roar of the hatred and cursing of a whole people.
But the object of all this rested calm and unmoved, and his cruel grey eye had no expression in it save a certain tolerant and amused contempt.
"Bah!" he muttered. "Would that I had slain ten millions of you! It is my only regret that I had not the time. It is almost unworthy to die for a few score children!"