battalion of soldiers, and behind them, seated in the felon's cart,
came a pale, beautiful woman, who ever and anon pressed to her
quivering lips the crucifix held out to her by a priest--that last
link of sympathy between the convict and his fellow-creatures. At
the criminal's side, in symbolic robes of sanguinary red, was the
executioner that was to sever this slender tie, and wrench the
spirit from the body to whose guardianship God had committed it on
earth. Silently the hideous cortege moved on, while the crowd fell
back to let it pass, until the scaffold came to view. How joyously
the sun's rays seemed to play around the glittering axe that was to
end a career of secret crime! How eagerly the high-born dames bend
forward to catch sight of the criminal, as, leaning on the arm of
the priest, she tottered to her doom! Olympia remembered only too
well the moment when the drum ceased its "discordant sound," and
when the silence was so oppressive that the low voice of the
condemned was heard uttering her last prayer. She knelt beside the
block--a circle of light was described upon the air--and the head
fell upon the blood-besprinkled sand.

The Countess de Soissons sickened as she remembered that the woman
whom she had seen executed was one of high position, no less a
personage than the beautiful and fascinating Marquise de
Brinvilliers. Neither her rank, her charms, nor the strenuous
efforts of her powerful friends, had been adequate to save her from
the headsman's axe. She had been convicted of poisoning, and had
shared the fate of other malefactors of less repute. Her confidante
La Voisin had been arrested at the time, but as nothing proved her
to have been an accomplice of her former mistress she had escaped
conviction.