The king blushed for very shame.

He felt that Heaven, in permitting this fearful humiliation, did no more than render to the man the same torture as had been inflicted by that man upon so many others.

Nothing could be more efficacious for reawakening his mind to religious influences than the prostration of his heart and mind and soul beneath the feeling of such acute wretchedness.

But Louis dared not even kneel in prayer to God to entreat him to terminate his bitter trial.
"Heaven is right," he said; "Heaven acts wisely.

It would be cowardly to pray to Heaven for that which I have so often refused my own fellow-creatures." He had reached this stage of his reflections, that is, of his agony of mind, when a similar noise was again heard behind his door, followed this time by the sound of the key in the lock, and of the bolts being withdrawn from their staples.