At dinner Phœbus was served by his son, Gaston, and looking hard at him observed the string about his neck. Laying hold of him, he tore open his vest, and discovered the bag of powder. He cut the string, and gave some of the white contents on a piece of meat to a dog, that ate it and died. Then in a paroxysm of rage, knife in hand, he leaped over the table, swearing that he would kill Gaston, who had purposed to poison him. He would have slain him on the spot had not his servants interposed and disarmed him. The Count then ordered the boy to be thrown into a dungeon. At the same time he had all the attendants of the youth who had been with him in Navarre arrested and tortured, and fifteen of them were forthwith hung. “Which was a pity,” says Froissart, “for there were not in all Gascony such handsome and well-appointed squires.” The Bishop of Lescar had timely warning, and took to his heels. The Count assembled the Estates of Béarn and laid before them his charge against the boy, and they unanimously decided that the prince must not be executed, but kept in durance for awhile; nor would they separate till they had extorted from Phœbus a solemn undertaking to submit to their decision. But the poor lad, knowing his innocence, wounded to the quick at the manner in which he had been duped by his uncle, at the blind conviction of his guilt entertained by his father, at the barbarity with which his companions had been racked, and strung up, refused all food. He was confined in a narrow dungeon, badly lighted, and his gaoler at first did not observe that the meals he brought him remained untouched. But on the tenth day--I quote Froissart-- “The person who served him, looking about the cell, saw all the meat unconsumed with which he had been previously supplied. Then, shutting the door, he went to the Count of Foix and said, ‘My lord, for God’s sake, look to your son, he is starving himself in his prison. I do not believe that he has eaten a morsel since his confinement.’ On hearing this the Count was enraged, and without saying a word went to his son’s prison. In an evil hour he had a knife in his hand, with which he had been paring his nails. He held it so close by the blade that of the point scarcely so much as the size of a groat showed. “Thrusting aside the tapestry that covered the door of the dungeon, through ill luck he struck his son on the jugular vein, as he shouted, ‘Ha, traitor! why dost thou not eat?’ and instantly flung out of the chamber without saying or doing more. The lad was frightened at his father’s violence, and was, moreover, weak through long fasting. The point of the knife, small though it was, had severed the artery, and when he felt what had been done, he turned himself on one side on his pallet and expired.