"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.
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