The Three Musketeers (Translated by Richard Pevear) - Alexandre Dumas [309]
“Ask this woman,” said the man in the red cloak, “for you can see very well that she has recognized me.”
“The executioner of Lille, the executioner of Lille!” cried Milady, prey to a mad terror and clinging to the wall with her hands so as not to fall.
Everyone stepped back, and the man in the red cloak was left standing alone in the middle of the room.
“Oh, mercy! mercy! forgive me!” the wretched woman cried, falling to her knees.
The unknown man let silence be restored.
“I told you she had recognized me. Yes, I am the executioner of the town of Lille, and here is my story.”
All eyes were fixed on this man, whose words were awaited with an avid anxiousness.
“This young woman was once a young girl, just as beautiful as she is today. She was a nun in the Benedictine convent of Templemar. A young priest of a simple and believing heart served in the church of this convent. She set about to seduce him, and she succeeded—she could have seduced a saint.
“The vows they had both taken were sacred, irrevocable; their liaison could not last long without ruining them both. She got him to agree that they should leave that part of the country. But to leave there, to run off together, to go to another part of France, where they could live peacefully because they would not be known, required money. Neither of them had any. The priest stole the sacred vessels and sold them; but as they were getting ready to leave together, they were both arrested.
“Eight days later, she had seduced the jailer’s son and escaped. The young priest was sentenced to branding and ten years in irons. I was the executioner of the town of Lille, as this woman said. I was obliged to brand the guilty man, and the guilty man, gentlemen, was my own brother!
“I swore then that this woman who had ruined him, who was more than his accomplice, since it was she who had driven him to crime, would at least share the punishment. I guessed where she was hiding, pursued her, found her, bound her, and printed upon her the same brand I had printed upon my brother.
“The day after my return to Lille, my brother managed to escape in his turn. I was accused of complicity and was sentenced to sit in prison in his place for as long as he did not give himself up. My poor brother knew nothing of this verdict. He had rejoined this woman, and they had fled together to Berry. There he obtained a small parish. This woman passed for his sister.
“The lord of the land on which the curate’s church was located saw this supposed sister and fell in love with her, so much in love that he proposed marriage to her. Then she left the man she had ruined for the one she would ruin, and became the comtesse de La Fère…”
All eyes turned to Athos, whose real name this was, and he nodded as a sign that everything the executioner had said was true.
“Then,” the latter went on, “mad, desperate, resolved to rid himself of an existence from which she had taken all honor and happiness, my poor brother returned to Lille, and learning of the decree that had condemned me in his place, gave himself up and hanged himself that same night from the bars of his prison window.
“Moreover, to do them justice, those who had sentenced me kept their word. The identity of the body had scarcely been established before they restored me to liberty.
“That is the crime I accuse her of, that is the reason why I branded her.”
“Monsieur d’Artagnan,” said Athos, “what penalty do you call for against this woman?”
“The penalty of death,” replied d’Artagnan.
“Milord de Winter,” Athos continued, “what penalty do you call for against this woman?”
“The penalty of death,” answered Lord de Winter.
“MM. Porthos and Aramis,” Athos went on, “you who are her judges, what penalty do you bring against this woman?”
“The penalty of death,” the two musketeers replied in the same hollow voice.
Milady uttered a dreadful cry and moved several paces towards her judges, dragging herself on her knees.
Athos held his hand out towards her.
“Anne de Breuil, Comtesse de La Fère, Milady de Winter,” he said, “your crimes