Those charged with awakening her, gloomy and timid, were marching in line through the corridors of the jail, bumping into one another in their nervous precipitation.

The door was opened.  Under the regulation light Freya was on her bed, with closed eyes.  Upon opening them and finding herself surrounded by men, her face was convulsed with terror.

“Courage, Freya!” said the prison warden.  “The appeal for pardon has been denied.”

“Courage, my daughter,” added the priest of the establishment, starting the beginning of a discourse.

Her terror, due to the rude surprise of awakening with the brain still paralyzed, lasted but a few seconds.  Upon collecting her thoughts, serenity returned to her face.

“I must die?” she asked.  “The hour has already come?...  Very well, then:  let them shoot me.  Here I am.”

Some of the men turned their heads, and so averted their glance....  She had to get out of the bed in the presence of the two watchmen.  This precaution was so that she might not attempt to take her life.  She even asked the lawyer to remain in the cell as though in this way she wished to lessen the annoyance of dressing herself before strangers.

Upon reaching this passage in his letter, Ferragut realized the pity and admiration of the maitre who had seen her preparing the last toilet of her life.

“Adorable creature!  So beautiful!...  She was born for love and luxury, yet was going to die, torn by bullets like a rude soldier....”

The precautions adopted by her coquetry appeared to him admirable.  She wanted to die as she had lived, placing on her person the best that she possessed.  Therefore, suspecting the nearness of her execution, she had a few days before reclaimed the jewels and the gown that she was wearing when arrest prevented her returning to Brest.

Her defender described her “with a dress of pearl gray silk, bronze stockings and low shoes, a great-coat of furs, and a large hat with plumes.  Besides, the necklace of pearls was on her bosom, emeralds in her ears and all her diamonds on her fingers.”

A sad smile curled her lips upon trying to look at herself in the window panes, still black with the darkness of night, which served her as a mirror.

“I die in my uniform like a soldier,” she said to her lawyer.

Then in the ante-chamber of the prison, under the crude artificial light, this plumed woman, covered with jewels, her clothing exhaling a subtle perfume, memory of happier days, turned without any embarrassment toward the men clad in black and in blue uniforms.

Two religious sisters who accompanied her appeared more moved than she.  They were trying to exhort her and at the same time were struggling to keep back the tears....  The priest was no less touched.  He had attended other criminals, but they were men....  To assist to a decent death a beautiful perfumed woman scintillating with precious stones, as though she were going to ride in an automobile to a fashionable tea!...