“Hereupon he embraced him, and ascended the scaffold with surprising address and agility.  He walked round the scaffold, and contemplated the whole of the great assembly with a calm countenance, which betrayed no sign of fear, and a serious and graceful manner.  He then went round once more, saluting the people on every side, without appearing to recognize any of us, with a majestic and charming expression of face; he then knelt down, raising his eyes to heaven, adoring God, and recommending himself to Him.  As he embraced the crucifix, the father confessor called to the people to pray for him; and M. le Grand, opening his arms, still holding his crucifix, made the same request to the people.  Then he readily knelt before the block, holding the stake, placed his neck upon it, and asked the confessor, ‘Father, is this right?’ Then, while they were cutting off his hair, he raised his eyes to heaven, and said, sighing: 

   “’My God, what is this world?  My God, I offer thee my death as a
   satisfaction for my sins!’

“‘What are you waiting for?  What are you doing there?’ he said to the executioner, who had not yet taken his axe from an old bag he had brought with him.  His confessor, approaching, gave him a medallion; and he, with an incredible tranquillity of mind, begged the father to hold the crucifix before his eyes, which he would not allow to be bound.  I saw the two trembling hands of the Abbe Quillet, who raised the crucifix.  At this moment a voice, as clear and pure as that of an angel, commenced the ‘Ave, maris stella’.  In the universal silence I recognized the voice of M. de Thou, who was at the foot of the scaffold; the people repeated the sacred strain.  M. de Cinq-Mars clung more tightly to the stake; and I saw a raised axe, made like the English axes.  A terrible cry of the people from the Place, the windows, and the towers told me that it had fallen, and that the head had rolled to the ground.  I had happily strength enough left to think of his soul, and to commence a prayer for him.

“I mingled it with that which I heard pronounced aloud by our unfortunate and pious friend De Thou.  I rose and saw him spring upon the scaffold with such promptitude that he might almost have been said to fly.  The father and he recited a psalm; he uttered it with the ardor of a seraphim, as if his soul had borne his body to heaven.  Then, kneeling down, he kissed the blood of Cinq-Mars as that of a martyr, and became himself a greater martyr.  I do not know whether God was pleased to grant him this last favor; but I saw with horror that the executioner, terrified no doubt at the first blow he had given, struck him upon the top of his head, whither the unfortunate young man raised his hand; the people sent forth a long groan, and advanced against the executioner.  The poor wretch, terrified still more, struck him another blow, which only cut the skin and threw him upon the scaffold,