When the priest came to the Latin words, _Introibo ad altare Dei_, a
sudden divine inspiration flashed upon him; he looked at the three
kneeling figures, the representatives of Christian France, and said
instead, as though to blot out the poverty of the garret, "We are
about to enter the Sanctuary of God!"
These words, uttered with thrilling earnestness, struck reverent awe
into the nuns and the stranger. Under the vaulted roof of St. Peter's
at Rome, God would not have revealed Himself in greater majesty than
here for the eyes of the Christians in that poor refuge; so true is it
that all intermediaries between God and the soul of man are
superfluous, and all the grandeur of God proceeds from Himself alone.
The stranger's fervor was sincere. One emotion blended the prayers of
the four servants of God and the King in a single supplication. The
holy words rang like the music of heaven through the silence. At one
moment, tears gathered in the stranger's eyes. This was during the
_Pater Noster_; for the priest added a petition in Latin, and his
audience doubtless understood him when he said: "_Et remitte scelus
regicidis sicut Ludovicus eis remisit semetipse_"--forgive the
regicides as Louis himself forgave them.
The Sisters saw two great tears trace a channel down the stranger's
manly checks and fall to the floor. Then the office for the dead was
recited; the Domine salvum fac regem chanted in an undertone that went
to the hearts of the faithful Royalists, for they thought how the
child-King for whom they were praying was even then a captive in the
hands of his enemies; and a shudder ran through the stranger, as he
thought that a new crime might be committed, and that he could not
choose but take his part in it.
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