“Vade retro, Satanas,” was heard through a high window in the hall.

Fournier stopped for a moment, then said: 

“You hear these voices parodying the divine language?  If I mistake not, these instruments of an infernal power are, by this song, preparing some new spell.”

“But,” cried those who surrounded him, “what shall we do?  What have they done with him?”

“Remain here; be immovable, be silent,” replied the young advocate.  “The inertia of a people is all-powerful; that is its true wisdom, that its strength.  Observe them closely, and in silence; and you will make them tremble.”

“They surely will not dare to appear here again,” said the Comte du Lude.

“I should like to look once more at the tall scoundrel in red,” said Grand-Ferre, who had lost nothing of what had occurred.

“And that good gentleman, the Cure,” murmured old Father Guillaume Leroux, looking at all his indignant parishioners, who were talking together in a low tone, measuring and counting the archers, ridiculing their dress, and beginning to point them out to the observation of the other spectators.

Cinq-Mars, still leaning against the pillar behind which he had first placed himself, still wrapped in his black cloak, eagerly watched all that passed, lost not a word of what was said, and filled his heart with hate and bitterness.  Violent desires for slaughter and revenge, a vague desire to strike, took possession of him, despite himself; this is the first impression which evil produces on the soul of a young man.  Later, sadness takes the place of fury, then indifference and scorn, later still, a calculating admiration for great villains who have been successful; but this is only when, of the two elements which constitute man, earth triumphs over spirit.

Meanwhile, on the right of the hall near the judges’ platform, a group of women were watching attentively a child about eight years old, who had taken it into his head to climb up to a cornice by the aid of his sister Martine, whom we have seen the subject of jest with the young soldier, Grand-Ferre.  The child, having nothing to look at after the court had left the hall, had climbed to a small window which admitted a faint light, and which he imagined to contain a swallow’s nest or some other treasure for a boy; but after he was well established on the cornice, his hands grasping the bars of an old shrine of Jerome, he wished himself anywhere else, and cried out: 

“Oh, sister, sister, lend me your hand to get down!”

“What do you see there?” asked Martine.

“Oh, I dare not tell; but I want to get down,” and he began to cry.

“Stay there, my child; stay there!” said all the women.  “Don’t be afraid; tell us all that you see.”

“Well, then, they’ve put the Cure between two great boards that squeeze his legs, and there are cords round the boards.”

“Ah! that is the rack,” said one of the townsmen.  “Look again, my little friend, what do you see now?”