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Updated: May 2, 2025
"Madame," said Joyeuse, "I see those four stout horses, who appear to me so impatient of their state of inactivity that I do not believe in a long resistance of the muscles, tendons, and cartilages of M. de Salcede." "Yes, but my son is merciful," replied she, with the smile peculiar to herself, "and he will tell the men to go gently."
Still there was no response. The king unfolded the paper. "Thousand devils!" cried Salcede, "if they have deceived me! Yet it was she it was really she!" No sooner had the king read the first lines, than he called out indignantly, "Oh! the wretch!" "What is it, my son?" "He retracts all he pretends that he confessed nothing; and he declares that the Guises are innocent of any plot!"
At this sight Salcede stopped his confession, and an instant after, the executioner stopped his repentance. Thus, gentlemen, you have nothing to fear as to our enterprise in Flanders; this secret is buried in the tomb." It was this last speech which had so pleased all the conspirators.
Robert Briquet turned toward the speaker, whose voice had a strong Gascon accent, and saw a young man from twenty to twenty-five, resting his hand on the crupper of the horse of the first speaker. His head was bare; he had probably lost his hat in the melée. "But as they say," replied Briquet, "that this Salcede belongs to M. de Guise " "Bah! they say that!"
"M. Miton, there will be none, I answer for it. Do you not think so, monsieur?" continued he, turning to the long-armed man. "What?" said the other, as though he had not heard. "They say there will be nothing on the Place de Greve to-day." "I think you are wrong, and that there will be the execution of Salcede." "Yes, doubtless: but I mean that there will be no noise about it."
"Making slip knots at the ends of the cords." "And he what is he doing?" "Who?" "The condemned." "His eyes turn incessantly from side to side." The horses were near enough to enable the executioner to tie the feet and hands of the criminal to the harness. Salcede uttered a cry when he felt the cord in contact with his flesh.
"Well!" said Salcede, with a sigh, "I am ready to speak." "It is a written and signed confession that the king exacts." "Then untie my hands, and give me a pen and I will write it." They loosened the cords from his wrists, and an usher who stood near with writing materials placed them before him on the scaffold. "Now," said Tanchon, "state everything."
By his side a little man, mounted on a hillock, was talking to another tall man who was constantly slipping off the summit of the same hillock, and at each slip catching at the button of his neighbor's doublet. "Yes, Maitre Miton," said the little man to the tall one, "yes, I tell you that there will be 100,000 people around the scaffold of Salcede 100,000 at least.
"Yes, sire," replied the duke, carelessly. "How quickly you disappeared from the Place de Greve." "Sire, to speak frankly, I do not like to see men suffer." "Tender heart." "No; egotistical heart, rather; then sufferings act on my nerves." "You know what passed?" "Ma foi! no." "Salcede denied all." "Ah!" "You bear it very indifferently, Joyeuse."
"Ah! monsieur, the boot and the thumb-screw make a man confess many things." "Alas! that is true, monsieur." "Bah!" interrupted the Gascon, "the boot and the thumb-screw, nonsense: if Salcede confessed that, he was a knave, and his patron another." "You speak loudly, monsieur," said the cavalier. "I speak as I please; so much the worse for those who dislike it."
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