“Hélène, seizing the cord with both hands, defended herself, all bleeding as she was; whereupon the woman Grandjean dragged her by the cord, head downwards, to the edge of the platform, and, having got her to the stone steps, she cut her throat with the shears. “She was at it when the butchers and the masons, upsetting the archers and the police, rushed the approaches of the scaffold and chapel: a dozen strong arms lifted Hélène Gillet and carried her, insensible, to the shop of Maître Jacquin, the barber-surgeon. “The crowd of people which flung itself on the chapel-door would soon have forced it. But the two Capuchin brothers and the two Jesuit fathers opened it, being terrified. And holding up their crosses with outstretched arm, they made a way with great difficulty through the riot. “The headsman and his wife were stoned, and struck down with hammers, and their bodies dragged through the streets. Hélène Gillet, however, recovering consciousness at the surgeon’s, asked to drink. Then, while Maître Jacquin was dressing her wound, she said: “‘Shall I not have anything more to suffer?’ “It was found that she had suffered two blows with the sword, six cuts from the shears, which had slashed her lips and throat, and that her loins had been deeply cut by the sword, over which the headswoman dragged her while trying to strangle her; and finally that her whole body was bruised by the stones the crowd had thrown on the scaffold. “Nevertheless she was healed of all her wounds. Left in the hands of Jacquin the surgeon, under guard of a sheriff’s officer, she asked continually: “‘Is it not over? Will they kill me?’ “The surgeon, and some charitable people who stood by her, were urgent in reassuring her. But only the king could grant her her life. Févret, the advocate, drew up a petition which was signed by many notables of Dijon, and carried to his Majesty. Festivities were being held at the court at that moment on account of the marriage of Henrietta-Maria of France with the King of England. On the score of this marriage, Louis the Just granted the favour asked. “He gave a full pardon to the poor girl, deeming, as the letters of remission said, that she had suffered tortures which equalled, nay even surpassed, the penalty of her sentence. “Hélène Gillet, restored to life, withdrew into a convent at Brest where she practised up to the time of her death, the strictest piety. Such,” said the little official, “is the true history of Hélène Gillet, as every one in Dijon knows. Do you not find it entertaining, Monsieur l’Abbé?” XX JUSTICE (_continued_) “Alas!” said my good master, “I cannot stomach my food. My heart is as sick at this horrible scene, which you have described so cold-bloodedly, sir, as at the sight of this servant of Madame Josse’s whom they are taking to be hanged, when something better might be made of her.”