As the doctor spoke these words, the executioner placed in the marquise’s hands the lighted torch which she was to carry to Notre-Dame, there to make the ‘amende honorable’, and as it was too heavy, weighing two pounds, the doctor supported it with his right hand, while the registrar read her sentence aloud a second time.  The doctor did all in his power to prevent her from hearing this by speaking unceasingly of God.  Still she grew frightfully pale at the words, “When this is done, she shall be conveyed on a tumbril, barefoot, a cord round her neck, holding in her hands a burning torch two pounds in weight,” and the doctor could feel no doubt that in spite of his efforts she had heard.  It became still worse when she reached the threshold of the vestibule and saw the great crowd waiting in the court.  Then her face worked convulsively, and crouching down, as though she would bury her feet in the earth, she addressed the doctor in words both plaintive and wild:  “Is it possible that, after what is now happening, M. de Brinvilliers can endure to go on living?”

“Madame,” said the doctor, “when our Lord was about to leave His disciples, He did not ask God to remove them from this earth, but to preserve them from all sin.  ‘My Father,’ He said, ’I ask not that You take them from the world, but keep them safe from evil.’  If, madame, you pray for M. de Brinvilliers, let it be only that he may be kept in grace, if he has it, and may attain to it if he has it not.”

But the words were useless:  at that moment the humiliation was too great and too public; her face contracted, her eyebrows knit, flames darted from her eyes, her mouth was all twisted.  Her whole appearance was horrible; the devil was once more in possession.  During this paroxysm, which lasted nearly a quarter of an hour, Lebrun, who stood near, got such a vivid impression of her face that the following night he could not sleep, and with the sight of it ever before his eyes made the fine drawing which—­is now in the Louvre, giving to the figure the head of a tiger, in order to show that the principal features were the same, and the whole resemblance very striking.

The delay in progress was caused by the immense crowd blocking the court, only pushed aside by archers on horseback, who separated the people.  The marquise now went out, and the doctor, lest the sight of the people should completely distract her, put a crucifix in her hand, bidding her fix her gaze upon it.  This advice she followed till they gained the gate into the street where the tumbril was waiting; then she lifted her eyes to see the shameful object.  It was one of the smallest of carts, still splashed with mud and marked by the stones it had carried, with no seat, only a little straw at the bottom.  It was drawn by a wretched horse, well matching the disgraceful conveyance.