“She was attended by two Jesuit fathers and two Capuchin brothers, who held up before her Jesus dying on the Cross. Near by stood the headsman with his sword and the headswoman with a pair of shears. A company of archers surrounded the cart. Behind pressed a crowd of curious people where might have been discerned many small tradesmen, bakers, butchers, masons, from whom a great tumult arose. “The procession stopped on the place called Place Morimont not, as might be thought, because it was the place of public execution, but in remembrance of the mitred and croziered abbots of Morimont, who formerly had their house there. The wooden scaffold was set up on some stone steps adjoining a humble chapel where the monks were wont to pray for the souls of the victims. “Hélène Gillet ascended the steps with the four religious, the headsman, and his wife the headswoman. The latter, having withdrawn the cord which encircled the victim’s neck, cut her hair with shears half a foot long and bandaged her eyes; the religious prayed aloud. The headsman, however, began to tremble and turn pale. He was one, Simon Grandjean, a feeble-looking man, and as gentle and timorous of appearance as his wife, the headswoman, was savage. He had taken communion that morning in prison, and yet he felt upset and without courage to put this child to death. He leant over towards the crowd: “‘Your pardon, all of you,’ he said, ‘if I do what I have to do badly. I have a fever on me I have been unable to shake off for three months.’ “Then tottering, wringing his hands, lifting his eyes to heaven, he fell on his knees before Hélène Gillet, and twice asked her pardon. He asked a blessing from the priests, and when the headswoman had arranged the victim on the block he lifted his sword. “The Jesuits and the Capuchins cried out ‘Jesus! Mary!’ and a groan went up from the crowd. The blow, which should have severed the neck, made a large gash on the left shoulder, and the poor creature fell over on her right side. “Simon Grandjean, turning to the crowd, exclaimed: “‘Let me die!’ “Hooting arose, and some stones were thrown on the scaffold where the headswoman was replacing the victim on the block. “Her husband again took his sword. Striking a second time, he deeply gashed the neck of the poor girl, who fell on the sword, which slipped from the hands of the executioner. “This time the uproar from the crowd was terrible, and such a hail of stones showered on the scaffold that Simon Grandjean and the Jesuits and the Capuchins jumped down. They managed to gain the low-roofed chapel and shut themselves in. The headswoman, left alone with the victim, looked for the sword. Not seeing it, she took the cord with which Hélène Gillet had been led there, knotted it round the neck, and setting her foot on her chest tried to strangle her.