When Pécolat was informed of the fatal decision, his terrors recommenced. The prospect of a new torture, the thought of the accusations he would make against his friends, disturbed his conscience and plunged him into despair.... His features were distorted by it, his beard was in disorder, his eyes were haggard: all in him expressed suffering and terror. His keepers, not understanding this state of his mind, thought that he was possessed by a devil. ‘Berthelier,’ said they, ‘is a great _charmer_, he has a familiar spirit. He has charmed Pécolat to render him insensible to the torture; try as we may, he will say nothing.’ It was the belief at that time that the _charmers_ lodged certain devils in the patients’ hair. The prisoner’s long rough beard disquieted the bishop’s officers. It was resolved that Pécolat should be shaved in order to expel the demon.[131] According to rule it should have been an exorcist and not a barber that they should have sent for. Robed in surplice and stole, the priest should have made the sign of the cross over Pécolat, sprinkled him with holy water, and pronounced loud-sounding anathemas against the evil spirit. But no, the bishop was contented to send a barber, which was much more prosaic; it may be that, besides all his other vices, the bastard was a freethinker. The barber came and got his razor ready. The devil whom Pécolat feared, was his own cowardice. ‘I shall inculpate my best friends,’ he said to himself; ‘I shall confess that Berthelier wished to kill the bishop; I shall say all they want me to say.... And then if I die on the rack (which was very possible, considering the exhaustion of his strength) I shall be eternally damned for having lied in the hour of death.’ This idea alarmed him; a tempest agitated his soul; he was already in agony. ‘It is better,’ he thought, ‘to cut off an arm, a foot, or even the tongue, than fall into everlasting perdition.’ At this moment the barber, who had wetted the beard, quitted the room to throw the water out of the basin; Pécolat caught up the razor which the man had left on the table by his side and raised it to his tongue; but moral and physical force both failing him, he made only a gash. He was trying again, when the barber returned, sprang upon him in affright, snatched the razor from his hand, and raised an alarm. The gaoler, his family, and the prince’s surgeon rushed in and found Pécolat ‘coughing and spitting out blood in large quantities.’ They seized him and began to stanch the blood, which it was not difficult to do. His tongue was not cut off, as some have asserted; there was only a deep wound. The officers of the duke and the bishop took extraordinary pains to cure him, ‘not to do him good,’ say the chronicles, ‘but to do him a greater ill another time, and that he might use his tongue in singing whatever they pleased.’ All were greatly astounded at this mystery, of which there was great talk throughout the city.[132] Pécolat’s wound having been dressed,