This meeting of the Tribunal was to be conducted with the most minute observance of all the forms.  All the assize judges, who in a long hearing generally had their places filled by proxies, were present.

The courtroom, massive, obscure, upheld by heavy Roman pillars, had been rejuvenated.  The wall, ogival, threw to cathedral height the arches of its vaulted ceiling, which were joined together, like the sides of an abbatial mitre, in a point.  The room was lighted by sickly daylight which was filtered through small panes between heavy leads.  The azure of the ceiling was darkened to navy blue, and the golden stars, at that height, were as the heads of steel pins.  In the shadows of the vaults appeared the ermine of the ducal arms, dimly seen in escutcheons which were like great dice with black dots.

Suddenly the trumpets blared, the room was lighted up, and the Bishops entered.  Their mitres of cloth of gold flamed like the lightning.  About their necks were brilliant collars with orphreys crusted, as were the robes, with carbuncles.  In silent processional the Bishops advanced, weighted down by their rigid copes, which fell in a flare from their shoulders and were like golden bells split in the back.  In their hands they carried the crozier from which hung the maniple, a sort of green veil.

At each step they glowed like coals blown upon.  Themselves were sufficient to light the room, as they reanimated with their jewels the pale sun of a rainy October day and scattered a new lustre to all parts of the room, over the mute audience.

Outshone by the shimmer of the orphreys and the stones, the costumes of the other judges appeared darker and discordant.  The black vestments of secular justice, the white and black robe of Jean Blouyn, the silk symars, the red woollen mantles, the scarlet chaperons lined with fur, seemed faded and common.

The Bishops seated themselves in the front row, surrounding Jean de Malestroit, who from a raised seat dominated the court.

Under the escort of the men-at-arms Gilles entered.  He was broken and haggard and had aged twenty years in one night.  His eyes burned behind seared lids.  His cheeks shook.  Upon injunction he began the recital of his crimes.

In a laboured voice, choked by tears, he recounted his abductions of children, his hideous tactics, his infernal stimulations, his impetuous murders, his implacable violations.  Obsessed by the vision of his victims, he described their agonies drawn out or hastened, their cries, the rattle in their throats.  He confessed to having wallowed in the elastic warmth of their intestines.  He confessed that he had ripped out their hearts through wounds enlarged and opening like ripe fruit.  And with the eyes of a somnambulist he looked down at his fingers and shook them as if blood were dripping from them.

The thunder-struck audience kept a mournful silence which was lacerated suddenly by a few short cries, and the attendants, at a run, carried out fainting women, mad with horror.