What was most feared was the indignation of the public at sight of the torture uselessly inflicted on an old woman who had already been sufficiently punished.  The prefect’s words, “without scandal,” showed how popular feeling in Rouen had revolted at the verdict.  More than one story got afloat.  As the details of the trial were very imperfectly known, no journal having published the proceedings, it was said that the Marquise’s only crime was her refusal to denounce her daughter, and widespread pity was felt for this unhappy woman who was considered a martyr to maternal love and royalist faith.  Perhaps some of this universal homage was felt even in the prison, for towards the middle of February the Marquise seemed calmer and morally strengthened.  The authorities profited by this to order her punishment to proceed.  It was February the 17th, and as one of her “attacks” was feared, they prudently took her by surprise.  She was told that Dr. Ducolombier, coming from Chauveau-Lagarde, asked to see her at the wicket.  She went down without suspicion and was astonished to find in place of the man she expected, two others whom she had never seen.  One was the executioner Ferey, who seized her hands and tied her.  The doors opened, and seeing the gendarmes, the cart and the crowd, she understood, and bowed her head in resignation.

On the Place du Vieux-Marche the scaffold was raised, and a post to which the text of the verdict was affixed.  The prisoner was taken up to the platform; she seemed quite broken, thin, yet very imposing, with her still black hair, and her air of “lady of the manor.”  She was dressed in violet silk, and as she persisted in keeping her head down, her face was hidden by the frills of her bonnet.  To spare her no humiliation Ferey pinned them up; he then made her sit on a stool and tied her to the post, which forced her to hold up her head.

What she saw at the foot of the scaffold brought tears of pride to her eyes.  In the first row of the crowd that quietly and respectfully filled the place, ladies in sombre dresses were grouped as close as possible to the scaffold, as if to take a voluntary part in the punishment of the old Chouanne; and during the six hours that the exhibition lasted the ladies of highest rank and most distinguished birth in the town came by turns to keep her company in her agony; some of them even spread flowers at the foot of the scaffold, thus transforming the disgrace into an apotheosis.

The heart of the Marquise, which had not softened through seventeen months of torture and anxiety, melted at last before this silent homage; tears were seen rolling down her thin cheeks, and the crowd was touched to see the highest ladies in the town sitting round this old unhappy woman, and saluting her with solemn courtesies.

At nightfall Mme. de Combray was taken back to the conciergerie; later in the evening she was sent to Bicetre, and several days afterwards Chopais-Marivaux, thinking he had served the Master well, begged as the reward of his zeal for the cross of the Legion of Honour.