men bound to the yoke like beasts, women with bosoms gashed by the whip, children with their skulls cleft open--is direful as any less real and actual vision of the elder hell. Les cris d'enfant surtout venaient à mon oreille; Car, dans cette nuit-là, gouffre ou l'équité veille, La voix des innocents sur toute autre prévaut, C'est le cri des enfants qui monte le plus haut, Et le vagissement fait le bruit du tonnerre. The appeal for justice which follows, with its enumeration of horrors unspeakable except by history and poetry, is followed in its turn by the evocation of the soldiers whom this army of martyrs has with one voice designated to the angel of judgment as their torturers and murderers. The splendid and sonorous verses in which the muster of these legions after legions, with their garments rolled in blood, is made to defile before the eyes of reader or hearer, can be matched only by the description of the Swiss mercenaries in _Le Régiment du baron Madruce._ Un grand vautour doré les guidait comme un phare. Tant qu'ils étaient au fond de l'ombre, la fanfare, Comme un aigle agitant ses bruyants ailerons, Chantait claire et joyeuse au front des escadrons, Trompettes et tambours sonnaient, et des centaures Frappaient des ronds de cuivre entre leurs mains sonores; Mais, dès qu'ils arrivaient devant le flamboiement, Les clairons effarés se taisaient brusquement, Tout ce bruit s'éteignait. Reculant en désordre. Leurs chevaux se cabraient et cherchaient à les mordre, Et la lance et l'épée échappaient à leur poing. Challenged to make answer, the assassins of Italy and Hungary plead that they were but the sword, their captains were the hand. These are summoned in their turn, and cast their crimes in turn upon the judges who bade them shed blood and applauded their blood-shedding in the name of law and justice. And the judges and lawgivers are summoned in their stead. Ces hommes regardaient l'ange d'un air surpris: Comme, en lettres de feu, rayonnait sur sa face Son nom, Justice, entre eux ils disaient à voix basse: Que veut dire ce mot qu'il porte sur son front? Charged with their complicity in all the public crime and shame and horror of their period, these in turn cast the burden of their wrong-doing on the princes who commanded them and they obeyed, seeing how the priests and soothsayers had from all time assured them that kings were the images of God. The images of God are summoned, and appear, in the likeness of every form of evil imaginable by man. Devant chaque fantôme, en la brume glacée. Ayant le vague aspect d'une croix renversée, Venait un glaive nu, ferme et droit dans le vent, Qu'aucun bras ne tenait et qui semblait vivant.