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
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