cross upon his neck, side by side with the criminal bound with cords.

He mounted the tumbril with him, he mounted the scaffold with him.
The sufferer, who had been so gloomy and cast down on the preceding day,
was radiant. He felt that his soul was reconciled, and he hoped
in God. The Bishop embraced him, and at the moment when the knife
was about to fall, he said to him: "God raises from the dead him
whom man slays; he whom his brothers have rejected finds his Father
once more. Pray, believe, enter into life: the Father is there."
When he descended from the scaffold, there was something in his look
which made the people draw aside to let him pass. They did not know
which was most worthy of admiration, his pallor or his serenity.
On his return to the humble dwelling, which he designated,
with a smile, as his palace, he said to his sister, "I have just
officiated pontifically."

Since the most sublime things are often those which are the
least understood, there were people in the town who said,
when commenting on this conduct of the Bishop, "It is affectation."

This, however, was a remark which was confined to the drawing-rooms.
The populace, which perceives no jest in holy deeds, was touched,
and admired him.

As for the Bishop, it was a shock to him to have beheld the guillotine,
and it was a long time before he recovered from it.

In fact, when the scaffold is there, all erected and prepared,
it has something about it which produces hallucination.
One may feel a certain indifference to the death penalty,