He was yet buried in forgetfulness when the gaoler came to announce that the fatal hour was come, and for a moment, even after his spirit had resumed her powers, memory still wandered far from the reality. He had not dreamed, but all thought of the last few months had been obliterated, and remembrance escaping from the painful present, lingered fondly over all he had left behind. It lasted not long, and as all the truth came rushing on his mind, he thought alone of his approaching fate, and to meet it as became him. His heart, indeed, was sick of all the instability of this world's things, and for an instant there was a feeling almost amounting to satisfaction, when he thought that the eternal balancing between hope and fear, between joy and disappointment, was soon to be over, and that his soul, wearied of change and doubt, would quickly have peace and certainty. But then again the lingering ties of earth, the fond warm fellowships of human existence came strongly upon him, with all the throng of kindly sympathies that bind us to this world, and made him shrink from the thought of breaking them all at once. This also lasted but a moment--his fate was sealed, and hurrying over all that might in any degree undermine his fortitude, he followed into the court-yard, where the Prevost de Lyons and several of the authorities of the town, with a file of soldiers, waited his coming. The distance was so short from the place of his confinement to the scaffold where he had beheld for the last time his unhappy friend Cinq Mars, that the use of a carriage was dispensed with; and the guard having formed an avenue through the crowd, the gates were thrown open to give him exit for the last time. "Monsieur de Blenau, will you take my arm," said the Prevost of Lyons: "mine is a sad office, Sir, but the arm is not an unfriendly one." De Blenau, however, declined it with thanks, saying that he needed no support, and with a Priest on one hand and the Prevost on the other, he proceeded calmly towards the scaffold, and ascended the steps with a firm unshaken footstep. The block, and the axe, and the masked executioner were nothing in De Blenau's eyes but the mere weak precursors of the one awful event on which all his thoughts were bent, and for which his mind was now fully prepared. There was but one thought which could at all shake his fortitude--there was but one tie to be broken which wrung his heart to break. He thought of Pauline de Beaumont--but he thought also that he had merited a better fate; and proudly spurning the weakness that strove to grow upon his heart, he resolved to die as he had lived, worthy of her he loved. The very feeling gave new dignity to his air, and he stood erect and firm while the soldiers were disposed about the scaffold, and his sentence was read aloud by the Prevost.