He entered.  The Cardinal, still seated, held the two hands of the nun in one of his, and with the other he imposed silence upon his stupefied agent, who remained motionless, not yet seeing the face of this woman.  She spoke volubly, and the strange things she said contrasted horribly with the sweetness of her voice.  Richelieu seemed moved.

“Yes, I will stab him with a knife.  It is the knife which the demon Behirith gave me at the inn; but it is the nail of Sisera.  It has a handle of ivory, you see; and I have wept much over it.  Is it not singular, my good General?  I will turn it in the throat of him who killed my friend, as he himself told me to do; and afterward I will burn the body.  There is like for like, the punishment which God permitted to Adam.  You have an astonished air, my brave general; but you would be much more so, were I to repeat to you his song—­the song which he sang to me again last night, at the hour of the funeral-pyre—­you understand?—­the hour when it rains, the hour when my hand burns as now.  He said to me:  ’They are much deceived, the magistrates, the red judges.  I have eleven demons at my command; and I shall come to see you when the clock strikes, under a canopy of purple velvet, with torches—­torches of resin to give us light—­’ Ah, that is beautiful!  Listen, listen to what he sings!”

And she sang to the air of De Profundis.

“Is it not singular, my good General?” said she, when she had finished; “and I—­I answer him every evening.”

“Then he speaks as spirits and prophets speak.  He says:  ’Woe, woe to him who has shed blood!  Are the judges of the earth gods?  No, they are men who grow old and suffer, and yet they dare to say aloud, Let that man die!  The penalty of death, the pain of death—­who has given to man the right of imposing it on man?  Is the number two?  One would be an assassin, look you!  But count well, one, two, three.  Behold, they are wise and just, these grave and salaried criminals!  O crime, the horror of Heaven!  If you looked upon them from above as I look upon them, you would be yet paler than I am.  Flesh destroys flesh!  That which lives by blood sheds blood coldly and without anger, like a God with power to create!’”

The cries which the unhappy girl uttered, as she rapidly spoke these words, terrified Richelieu and Laubardemont so much that they still remained motionless.  The delirium and the fever continued to transport her.

“‘Did the judges tremble?’ said Urbain Grandier to me.  ’Did they tremble at deceiving themselves?’ They work the work of the just.  The question!  They bind his limbs with ropes to make him speak.  His skin cracks, tears away, and rolls up like a parchment; his nerves are naked, red, and glittering; his bones crack; the marrow spurts out.  But the judges sleep! they dream of flowers and spring.  ‘How hot the grand chamber is!’ says one, awaking; ’this man has not chosen to speak!  Is the torture finished?’ And pitiful at last, he dooms him to death—­death, the sole fear of the living! death, the unknown world!  He sends before him a furious soul which will wait for him.  Oh! has he never seen the vision of vengeance?  Has he never seen before falling asleep the flayed prevaricator?”