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Updated: May 10, 2025
He imagined that he thus made the devil his friend, and that his recompence would be the secret of the philosopher's stone. Gilles and Prelati were both condemned to be burned alive. At the place of execution they assumed the air of penitence and religion. Gilles tenderly embraced Prelati, saying, "Farewell, friend Francis!
I implore you, go in!" cries Gilles, but Blanchet, frightened, refuses. Then Gilles makes up his mind, in spite of his fear. He is advancing to force the door, when it opens and Prelati staggers out and falls, bleeding, into his arms.
Gilles, confounded, flees. Prelati rolls up the poor remains in linen and, trembling, goes out at night to bury them in consecrated ground beside a chapel dedicated to Saint Vincent. "Gilles preserves the blood of this child to write formulas of evocation and conjurements. It manures a horrible crop. Not long afterward the Marshal reaps the most abundant harvest of crimes that has ever been sown.
When he had finished the recital of his debauches and murders they ordered Prelati to be brought to them. At sight of him Gilles burst into tears and when, after the interrogatory, preparations were made to conduct the Italian back to his dungeon, Gilles embraced him, saying, "Farewell, Francis my friend, we shall never see each other again in this world.
"The fate of the unknown sorcerer and of Prelati, both getting dangerously wounded in an empty room, under identical circumstances I tell you, it's a remarkable coincidence," said Durtal to himself. "And the documents which relate these facts are authentic. They are, indeed, excerpts from the procedure in Gilles's trial.
Pleased with their comfortable quarters, they jogged on from day to day, and would have done so for years, had they been permitted. But he suddenly dismissed them all, with the exception of the Italian Prelati, and the physician of Poitou. These he retained to aid him to discover the secret of the philosopher's stone by a bolder method.
On the following night, Prelati went out alone; and after having been absent for three or four hours, returned to Gilles, who sat anxiously awaiting him. Prelati then informed him that he had seen the devil in the shape of a handsome youth of twenty.
Gilles expressed the utmost chagrin and disappointment, and at once said that he could not wait for so long a period; if the devil were not more prompt, Prelati might tell him, that the Marechal de Rays was not to be trifled with, and would decline all further communication with him. Prelati at last persuaded him to wait seven times seven days.
At any rate Gilles came completely under the influence of this man. The extinguished furnaces were relighted, and that Stone of the Sages, which Prelati had seen, flexible, frail, red and smelling of calcinated marine salt, they sought together furiously, invoking Hell. Their incantations were all in vain.
This hearing was, in addition, taken up with the arraignment of Prelati and his accomplices. Then, authorized by the ecclesiastical text which says that a confession cannot be regarded as sufficient if it is "dubia, vaga, generalis illativa, jocosa," the Prosecutor asserted that to certify the sincerity of his confessions Gilles must be subjected to the "canonic question," that is, to torture.
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