At these words, uttered with an impressive unction, a holy awe seized the assistant and the two nuns. Beneath the arches of St. Peter’s at Rome God could not have appeared with more majesty than He then appeared in that asylum of poverty, before the eyes of those Christians; so true is it that between man and Him every intermediary seems useless, and that He derives His grandeur from Himself alone. The fervor of the Stranger was genuine, and so the sentiment which united the prayers of those four servitors of God and the king was unanimous. The sacred words rang out like celestial music amid the silence. There was a moment when tears choked the Stranger; it was during the paternoster. The priest added to it this Latin prayer, which was evidently understood by the Stranger: “_Et remitte scelus regicidis sicut Ludovicus eis remisit semetipse!_ (And pardon the guilt of the regicides even as Louis himself forgave them!)” The two nuns saw two great tears leave a humid trace adown the manly cheeks of the Stranger, and fall upon the floor. The Office for the Dead was recited. The _Domine salvum fac regem_, chanted in a deep voice, touched the hearts of those faithful royalists, who reflected that the infant king, for whom at that moment they were supplicating the Most High, was a prisoner in the hands of his enemies. The Stranger shuddered at the thought that there might yet be committed a new crime, in which he would doubtless be forced to participate. When the funeral service was terminated, the priest made a sign to the two nuns, who retired. As soon as he found himself alone with the Stranger, he walked towards him with a mild and melancholy expression, and said to him in a paternal voice: “My son, if you have dipped your hands in the blood of the martyr king, confess yourself to me. There is no sin which, in the eyes of God, may not be effaced by repentance as touching and sincere as yours seems to be.” At the first words pronounced by the ecclesiastic, the Stranger allowed an involuntary movement of terror to escape him; but he resumed a calm countenance, and regarded the astonished priest with assurance. “Father,” he said to him in a perceptibly altered voice, “no one is more innocent than I of bloodshed.” “I am bound to believe you,” said the priest. There was a pause, during which he examined his penitent more closely; then, persisting in taking him for one of those timid members of the Convention who sacrificed an inviolable and consecrated head in order to preserve their own, he continued in a solemn voice: