“‘Some months ago,’ she told them, ‘a young man from the neighbourhood, who was staying at my uncle’s house, came to my father’s to teach the boys to read and write. He possessed me but once. It was through a servant who locked me up in a room with him. There he ravished me.’ And when they asked her why she had not cried for help, she replied that surprise had taken away her voice. Pressed by the judges, she added, that in consequence of this violation she became with child and was delivered prematurely. Far from having helped on the birth, she would not have known what it was, had not a servant revealed to her the true nature of the occurrence. “The magistrates, dissatified with her replies, did not know, all the same, how to contradict them, when an unexpected witness came forward to furnish certain proofs of the accusation. A soldier, who happened to pass when out walking by the garden of Monsieur Pierre Gillet, the governor-royal, father of the accused, saw in a ditch, at the foot of the wall, a raven trying to pull away a cloth with its beak. He went up to it to see what it was and found the body of a little child. He immediately informed the authorities. The child was wrapped in a chemise marked with the letters H. G. on the neck. It was proved to have been a full-term child, and Hélène Gillet, convicted of infanticide, was condemned to death according to custom. On account of the honourable post held by her father she was permitted to enjoy the privilege accorded those of noble birth, and the sentence ran that her head should be cut off. “An appeal having been made to the Parliament of Dijon, she was conducted under the guard of two archers to the capital of Burgundy, and shut in the conciergerie of the Palace. Her mother, who had gone with her, withdrew to the house of the Bernardine nuns. The case was heard by the members of Parliament on Monday the 12th of May, the last sitting before Whitsuntide. On the report of Counsellor Jacob the judges confirmed the sentence of the Bourg Court of First Instance, ordering that the condemned should be led to execution with the cord round her neck. It was generally remarked that this circumstance of infamy was added in a strange and unusual fashion to the punishment of a noble, and such severity, which was against all rules, was greatly blamed. But the decree admitted of no appeal, and had to be carried out immediately. “And indeed, on the same day, at half-past three in the afternoon, Hélène Gillet was led to the scaffold, the bells tolling the while, in a procession, heralded by trumpets, which sounded such a peal that all the good folk of the town heard it in their houses, and falling on their knees prayed for the soul of her who was about to die. The deputy King’s-attorney advanced on horseback followed by his attendants. Then came the condemned woman in a cart, the cord round her neck according to the decree of Parliament.