190 MONTHLY REVIEW OF LITERATURE. 



" ' The Indian was next seized, who proved to be a Florentine called Prclati. 

 He was put to the torture, and confessed every thing. Gilles himself could 

 not stand unmoved at the appearance of the rack; but, forgetting the resolution 

 he seemed tohave taken to die in silence, poured forth a declaration of his crimes 

 which filled his judges with horror. Even in the midst of such revelations, 

 however, he endeavoured to relieve himself of a part of the blame by com- 

 plaining of a bad education, and of the arts of Prelati and his accomplices, 

 who, working upon his infatuated predilections for forbidden studies, had 

 led him on insensibly from horror to horror, till at length his mind became 

 seared to the sense of guilt. It is remarkable that the audience, at this period 

 of the trial, forgot the horror which such a monster ought to have inspired, 

 and melted into tears of compassion. 



" ' Gilles de Retz was then condemned to be dragged in chains to the mea- 

 dow of the Madeleine, raised on a pile of faggots, and burned alive. The 

 fathers and mothers of families who witnessed the trial fasted for three days, 

 after, according to the custom of the period, in order to obtain a hearing for 

 their prayers in behalf of his soul. They, at the same time, scourged their 

 children with great severity, to impress upon their memory the awful lesson 

 they had received. 



" The Marshal was conducted to the place of punishment, in the midst 

 of a vast procession, formed of the monastic orders, and the clergy and secular 

 congregations of the city. He was much cast down, and seemed to dread the 

 sufferings he was about to undergo ; but these, through the interest of his 

 friends, were in part commuted, and, when the flames rose he was strangled, 

 and with comparatively little pain yielded forth his spirit to the latter 

 judgment.' " 



It is needless to mention that a tale or two of love is introduced to give a 

 zest to the narrative. The daughter of a Jew, the creature and victim of Pre- 

 lati (who by the way is in the novel brought into much higher relief than his 

 real historical importance justifies), and the daughter of Gilles de Retz are the 

 heroines, and by their agency, aided by the chivalry of a Scottish knight, a 

 worthy scion of the Douglases, and a follower of the newly betrothed princess 

 of Scotland, the plot is carried forward to its final development. 

 ' The author of these volumes is deficient in one grand characteristic of a ro- 

 mancist, we mean a knowledge of the passions. In the portraiture of the 

 deep and intense passions that move the human breast he fails in giving them 

 that force and boldness which they require ; and to the philosophy of love we 

 pronounce him to be wholly a stranger. With respect to what we might term 

 the melodramatic arrangements of the work he is far more successful, and 

 some of them are not unworthy of the great Magician of the North. His in- 

 timate acquaintance with the antiquities of France, at the time in question, 

 cannot be better illustrated than by the following extract : 



" The chatelet, through thearchway of which the Scotknight passed, although 

 no longer the Roman tower of Julian the apostate, appeared to him to be a 

 fortress of incomparable beauty as well as strength ; and the immense line 

 of the Rue St. Dennis beyond, although he had heard that the Rue St. Mar- 

 tin was still wealthier, seemed to contain in its countless shops and ware- 

 houses the riches of a whole kingdom. But every thing on this day had an 

 aspect peculiar to the occasion. The street was hung in its whole length with 

 canopies of rich cloth and carpeting, and here and there stages were erected 

 for the performance of music, shows, and mysteries. The members of the differ- 

 ent confreries of trades were seen hurrying along to their rendezvous, gor- 

 geously dressed, and bearing the banners of their patron saints ; while, just- 

 ling these, successive groups of minstrels, jugglers, players, and above all 

 cbvils, hoofed and horned, elbowed their way to their various posts. Nor were 

 the women wanting in the spectacle. The caps alone of the ladies, made in 

 the form of a sugar loaf, half an ell high, from the peak of which a white veil 



