On leaving the Conciergerie she was lifted into the cart. 'It was one of the smaller carts you see in the streets loaded with rubbish; it was very short and narrow, and I feared there was not room enough for her and me. Yet four of us got in, the executioner's assistant sitting on the board which closed it in front, with his feet on the shafts on either side of the horse. She and I sat on the straw put down to cover up the wood, and the executioner stood upright at the back. She got in first, and leant her back against the front-board and against the side, slightly at an angle. I was near her, pressing against her to make room for the executioner's feet, my back against the side of the cart, and my knees doubled up uncomfortably.' The cart proceeded slowly towards the Place de Grève, which extended from the Hôtel de Ville to the Seine. It was not easy to get through the crowd which pressed around it. The streets were black with people, and the windows crowded with sightseers. At this moment the lady's features underwent a sudden change of expression: 'They were dreadfully convulsed, the keenest agony being expressed in the eyes, and the whole countenance wild.' 'Sir,' she said to her confessor, 'would it be possible, after all that is passing now, for Monsieur de Brinvilliers to have so little feeling as to remain in this world?' Pirot answered as best he could, endeavouring to ease her mind; but what he said fell on deaf ears, for the marchioness 'then suffered one of the strongest convulsions of her nature in the vivid apprehension of so much shame. Her face contracted, her brows were knitted, her eyes flashed, her mouth was distorted, and her whole aspect was embittered.' 'I do not think,' adds Pirot, 'that there was a moment in all the time that I had been with her when her appearance betokened more indignation, and I am not surprised that Monsieur Le Brun, who is said to have seen her at that spot, where he could look close at her for some minutes, made so fiery and terrible a head as he is said to have done in the portrait he took of her.' Le Brun's sketch is now No. 853 at the exhibition of the Louvre; it is in red and black chalks. It is an admirable drawing, unquestionably the artist's masterpiece. Pirot is sketched in silhouette beside the lady. As the cart passed slowly through the crowd, voices were raised crying out for blood, and heaping curse on curse; but others spoke pitiful words, and she heard prayers for her salvation. There was a sudden revulsion of opinion in her favour, which grew stronger and stronger till the hour of her death. The shirt in which she was clothed filled her with amazement. 'Sir,' she said to her confessor, 'look; I am dressed all in white.'