The Equinox (Volume I, Number X)

THE KEY OF THE MYSTERIES thus thrown off, and drawn backwards, in such a manner that the prelate presented his breast uncovered, and protected only by the crossed embroideries of his stole. Then those who were behind the Archbishop saw him tremble, and we heard an interruption in a loud and clear voice; but without shouting, or clamour. What had been said? It seemed that it was: ‘ Down with the goddesses! But I thought that I had not heard aright, so out of place and void of sense it seemed. However, the exclamation was repeated twice or thrice; then some one cried: “Save the Archbishop!” Other voices replied: ‘To arms!” The crowd, overturning the chairs and the barriers, scattered, and rushed towards the doors shrieking. Amidst the wails of the children, and the screams of the women, Eliphas, carried away by the crowd, found himself somehow or other out of the church ; but the last look that he was able to cast upon it was smitten with a terrible and ineffaceable picture! In the midst of a circle made large by the affright of all those who surrounded him, the prelate was standing alone, leaning always on his cross, and held up by the stiffness of his cope, which the grand-vicars had let go, and which accord- ingly hung down to the ground. ‘The head of the Archbishop was a little thrown back, his eyes and his free hand raised to heaven. His attitude was that which Eugéne Delacroix has given to the Bishop of Liége in the picture of his assassination by the bandits of the Wild Boar of the Ardennes ;? there was in his gesture the whole 1 Extract from Sir Walter Scott’s Notes on the murder of the Bishop of Liége : “The Bishop’s murder did not take place till 1482. Inthe months of August and September of that year, William de la Marck, called ‘The Wild Boar of 169