“Madame,” said the man, “it is the custom for us to get all the property of the condemned; but you are mistress of all you have, and if the thing were of the very greatest value you might dispose of it as you pleased.”

The doctor, whose arm she held, felt her shiver at this gallantry, which for her, with her natural haughty disposition, must have been the worst humiliation imaginable; but the movement was restrained, and her face gave no sign.  She now came to the porch of the Conciergerie, between the court and the first door, and there she was made to sit down, so as to be put into the right condition for making the ‘amende honorable’.  Each step brought her nearer to the scaffold, and so did each incident cause her more uneasiness.  Now she turned round desperately, and perceived the executioner holding a shirt in his hand.  The door of the vestibule opened, and about fifty people came in, among them the Countess of Soissons, Madame du Refuge, Mlle. de Scudery, M, de Roquelaure, and the Abbe de Chimay.  At the sight the marquise reddened with shame, and turning to the doctor, said, “Is this man to strip me again, as he did in the question chamber?  All these preparations are very cruel; and, in spite of myself, they divert my thoughts, from God.”

Low as her voice was, the executioner heard, and reassured her, saying that they would take nothing off, only putting the shirt over her other clothes.

He then approached, and the marquise, unable to speak to the doctor with a man on each side of her, showed him by her looks how deeply she felt the ignominy of her situation.  Then, when the shirt had been put on, for which operation her hands had to be untied, the man raised the headdress which she had pulled down, and tied it round her neck, then fastened her hands together with one rope and put another round her waist, and yet another round her neck; then, kneeling before her, he took off her shoes and stockings.  Then she stretched out her hands to the doctor.

“Oh, sir,” she cried, “in God’s name, you see what they have done to me!  Come and comfort me.”

The doctor came at once, supporting her head upon his breast, trying to comfort her; but she, in a tone of bitter lamentation, gazing at the crowd, who devoured her with all their eyes, cried, “Oh, sir, is not this a strange, barbarous curiosity?”

“Madame,” said he, the tears in his eyes, “do not look at these eager people from the point of view of their curiosity and barbarity, though that is real enough, but consider it part of the humiliation sent by God for the expiation of your crimes.  God, who was innocent, was subject to very different opprobrium, and yet suffered all with joy; for, as Tertullian observes, He was a victim fattened on the joys of suffering alone.”