_Louis_--Just, but severe; I confess it: I punished ... but no, I have committed crimes. In mid-air the fatal knot has strangled my victims; in murderous pits they have been stabbed with steel; the waters have put an end to them, the earth has acted as their jailer. Prisoners buried beneath these towers groan forgotten in their depths.
_Francis_--Oh! since there are wrongs which you can still repair, come!
_Francis_--Let us set free those prisoners.
_Francis_ [_kneeling before the King_]--Charity orders: come, and save your soul.
_Louis_--And risk my crown! As a king, I cannot.
_Louis_--I have repented. Let that suffice.
_Francis_ [_rising_]--That avails nothing.
_Francis_--They are not condoned while you persist in them.
_Louis_--The Church has indulgences which a king can pay for.
_Francis_--God's pardon is not to be bought: we must deserve it.
_Louis_ [_in despair_]--I claim it by right of my anguish! O Father, if you knew my sufferings, you would shed tears of pity! The intolerable bodily pain I endure constitutes but half my troubles and my least suffering, I desire the places where I cannot be. Everywhere remorse pursues me; I avoid the living; I live among the dead. I spend dreadful days and nights more terrible. The darkness assumes visible shapes; silence disturbs me, and when I pray to my Savior I hear his voice say: "What would you with me, accursed?" When asleep, a demon sits on my chest: I drive him away, and a naked sword stabs me furiously; I rise aghast; human blood inundates my couch, and my hand, seized by a hand cold as death, is plunged in that blood and feels hideous moving débris....
_Louis_--You shudder. Such are my days and nights; my sleep, my life. Yet, dying, I agonize to live, and fear to drink the last drop of that bitter cup.
_Francis_--Come then. Forgive the wrongs others have done you, and thus abate your own tortures. A deed of mercy will buy you rest, and when you awake, some voice at least will bless your name. Come. Do not tarry.
_Francis_--But to-morrow, to-night, now, perhaps, death awaits you.
_Francis_--The unloved are ill protected. [_Tries to drag the King along._] Come! Come!
_Louis_ [_pushing him aside_]--Give me time, time to make up my mind.