that opinion, did all she could, not only to make her mother feel
differently, but even to induce her to embrace the marquis as a son.
This blindness on the part of the marquise caused Madame de Rossan so
much grief that notwithstanding her profound affection for her daughter
she would only stay two days, and in spite of the entreaties that the
dying woman made to her, she returned home, not allowing anything to stop
her. This departure was a great grief to the marquise, and was the
reason why she begged with renewed entreaties to be taken to Montpellier.
The very sight of the place where she had been so cruelly tortured
continually brought before her, not only the remembrance of the murder,
but the image of the murderers, who in her brief moments of sleep so
haunted her that she sometimes awoke suddenly, uttering shrieks and
calling for help. Unfortunately, the physician considered her too weak to
bear removal, and declared that no change of place could be made without
extreme danger.

Then, when she heard this verdict, which had to be repeated to her, and
which her bright and lively complexion and brilliant eyes seemed to
contradict, the marquise turned all her thoughts towards holy things, and
thought only of dying like a saint after having already suffered like a
martyr. She consequently asked to receive the last sacrament, and while
it was being sent for, she repeated her apologies to her husband and her
forgiveness of his brothers, and this with a gentleness that, joined to
her beauty, made her whole personality appear angelic. When, however,
the priest bearing the viaticum entered, this expression suddenly
changed, and her face presented every token of the greatest terror. She
had just recognised in the priest who was bringing her the last
consolations of Heaven the infamous Perette, whom she could not but
regard as an accomplice of the abbe and the chevalier, since, after
having tried to hold her back, he had attempted to crush her beneath the