Continuation of the Crown which was Changed into a Dry Leaf — The Hunchback of Notre-Dame

In the Question Chamber a furnace lights tongs, pincers, and a leather bed under a hanging strap. Pierrat Torterue, the torturer, waits with two assistants. Charmolue asks if la Esmeralda still denies the charge. She does. He chooses the boot, and iron plates close on her foot. She cries for mercy, says she is innocent, and is strapped to the bed.

Pierrat turns the screw. At the first terrible cry she confesses and begs for mercy. Charmolue warns that a confession means death. She says she hopes so. The clerk writes her yes to sabbaths, to the ram of Beelzebub, to the heads of Bophomet, to a devil in the form of the goat, and to the murder of Phœbus de Châteaupers on the twenty-ninth of March, with the surly monk. She answers as if broken. They free the swollen foot. Charmolue says she cried in time and could still dance, and he calls justice enlightened at last.