[117] I am not speaking of executions done by the people of their own accord. A hundred years ago, in a village of Provence, an old woman on being refused alms by a landowner, said in her fury, “You will be dead to-morrow.” He was smitten and died. The whole village, high and low, seized the old woman, and set her on a bundle of vine-twigs. She was burnt alive. The Parliament made a feint of inquiring, but punished nobody.--[In 1751 an old couple of Tring, in Hertfordshire, according to Wright, were tortured, kicked, and beaten to death, on the plea of witchcraft, by a maddened country mob.--TRANS.] Observe what was needed to wash that father clean. It was needful to show that, even if he had done wrong and imitated Des Chauffours, he had been the sport of some enchantment. The documents were but too plain. By the wording of the Canon Law, and after these late decrees, somebody ought to be burnt. Of the five magistrates on the bench, two only would have burnt Girard. Three were against Cadière. They came to terms. The three who formed the majority would not insist on burning her, would forego the long, dreadful scene at the stake, would content themselves with a simple award of death. In the name of these five, it was settled, pending the final assent of Parliament, “That Cadière, having first been put to the torture in both kinds, should afterwards be removed to Toulon, and suffer death by hanging on the Place des Prêcheurs.” This was a dreadful blow. An immense revulsion of feeling at once took place. The worldlings, the jesters ceased to laugh: they shuddered. Their love of trifling did not lead them to slur over a result so horrible. That a girl should be seduced, ill-used, dishonoured, treated as a mere toy, that she should die of grief, or of frenzy, they had regarded as right and good; with all that they had no concern. But when it was a case of punishment, when in fancy they saw before them the woeful victim, with rope round her neck, by the gallows where she was about to hang, their hearts rose in revolt. From all sides went forth the cry, “Never, since the world began, was there seen so villanous a reversal of things; the law of rape administered the wrong way, the girl condemned for having been made a tool, the victim hanged by her seducer!” In this town of Aix, made up of judges, priests, and the world of fashion, a thing unforeseen occurred: a whole people suddenly rose, a violent popular movement was astir. A crowd of persons of every class marched in one close well-ordered body straight towards the Ursulines. Cadière and her mother were bidden to show themselves. “Make yourself easy, mademoiselle,” they shouted: “we stand by you: fear nothing!”