The crowd knelt.
"Lord have mercy upon us." said the priests, who had remained beneath the arch of the portal.
"Kyrie eleison," repeated the throng in that murmur which runs over all heads, like the waves of a troubled sea.
"Amen," said the archdeacon.
He turned his back on the condemned girl, his head sank upon his breast once more, he crossed his hands and rejoined his escort of priests, and a moment later he was seen to disappear, with the cross, the candles, and the copes, beneath the misty arches of the cathedral, and his sonorous voice was extinguished by degrees in the choir, as he chanted this verse of despair,—