And now the frail, cat-like little man had to brace himself to meet a cruel and protracted execution. But sanguine to the last, he still hoped. An appeal lay from the Chatelet to the Parliament of Paris. It was heard on March 5. Derues was brought to the Palais de Justice. The room in which he waited was filled with curious spectators, who marvelled at his coolness and impudence. He recognised among them a Benedictine monk of his acquaintance. "My case," he called out to him, "will soon be over; we'll meet again yet and have a good time together." One visitor, wishing not to appear too curious, pretended to be looking at a picture. "Come, sir," said Derues, "you haven't come here to see the pictures, but to see me. Have a good look at me. Why study copies of nature when you can look at such a remarkable original as I?" But there were to be no more days of mirth and gaiety for the jesting grocer. His appeal was rejected, and he was ordered for execution on the morrow. At six o'clock on the morning of May 6 Derues returned to the Palais de Justice, there to submit to the superfluous torments of the question ordinary and extraordinary. Though condemned to death, torture was to be applied in the hope of wringing from the prisoner some sort of confession. The doctors declared him too delicate to undergo the torture of pouring cold water into him, which his illustrious predecessor, Mme. de Brinvilliers, had suffered; he was to endure the less severe torture of the "boot." His legs were tightly encased in wood, and wedges were then hammered in until the flesh was crushed and the bones broken. But never a word of confession was wrung from the suffering creature. Four wedges constituting the ordinary torture he endured; at the third of the extraordinary he fainted away. Put in the front of a fire the warmth restored him. Again he was questioned, again he asserted his wife's innocence and his own.