“Oh, sir,” she cried, “in God’s name, you see what they have done to me!  Come and comfort me.”

The doctor came at once, supporting her head upon his breast, trying to comfort her; but she, in a tone of bitter lamentation, gazing at the crowd, who devoured her with all their eyes, cried, “Oh, sir, is not this a strange, barbarous curiosity?”

“Madame,” said he, the tears in his eyes, “do not look at these eager people from the point of view of their curiosity and barbarity, though that is real enough, but consider it part of the humiliation sent by God for the expiation of your crimes.  God, who was innocent, was subject to very different opprobrium, and yet suffered all with joy; for, as Tertullian observes, He was a victim fattened on the joys of suffering alone.”

As the doctor spoke these words, the executioner placed in the marquise’s hands the lighted torch which she was to carry to Notre-Dame, there to make the ‘amende honorable’, and as it was too heavy, weighing two pounds, the doctor supported it with his right hand, while the registrar read her sentence aloud a second time.  The doctor did all in his power to prevent her from hearing this by speaking unceasingly of God.  Still she grew frightfully pale at the words, “When this is done, she shall be conveyed on a tumbril, barefoot, a cord round her neck, holding in her hands a burning torch two pounds in weight,” and the doctor could feel no doubt that in spite of his efforts she had heard.  It became still worse when she reached the threshold of the vestibule and saw the great crowd waiting in the court.  Then her face worked convulsively, and crouching down, as though she would bury her feet in the earth, she addressed the doctor in words both plaintive and wild:  “Is it possible that, after what is now happening, M. de Brinvilliers can endure to go on living?”

“Madame,” said the doctor, “when our Lord was about to leave His disciples, He did not ask God to remove them from this earth, but to preserve them from all sin.  ‘My Father,’ He said, ’I ask not that You take them from the world, but keep them safe from evil.’  If, madame, you pray for M. de Brinvilliers, let it be only that he may be kept in grace, if he has it, and may attain to it if he has it not.”

But the words were useless:  at that moment the humiliation was too great and too public; her face contracted, her eyebrows knit, flames darted from her eyes, her mouth was all twisted.  Her whole appearance was horrible; the devil was once more in possession.  During this paroxysm, which lasted nearly a quarter of an hour, Lebrun, who stood near, got such a vivid impression of her face that the following night he could not sleep, and with the sight of it ever before his eyes made the fine drawing which—­is now in the Louvre, giving to the figure the head of a tiger, in order to show that the principal features were the same, and the whole resemblance very striking.