A Popular History of France from the Earliest Times, Volume 3Guizot, François
History
A Popular History of France from the Earliest Times, Volume 3
Guizot, François
France -- History
I am not pleased at what you tell me as to the irons having
been taken off his legs, as to his being let out from his cage, and as to
his being taken to the mass to which the women go. Whatever the
chancellor or others may say, take care that he budge not from his cage,
that he be never let out save to give him hell (torture him), and that he
suffer hell (torture) in his own chamber.” The Duke of Nemours protested
against the choice of commissioners, and claimed, as a peer of the realm,
his right to be tried by the parliament. When put to the torture he
ended by saying, “I wish to conceal nothing from the king; I will tell
him the truth as to all I know.” “My most dread and sovereign lord,” he
himself wrote to Louis, “I have been so misdoing towards you and towards
God that I quite see that I am undone unless your grace and pity be
extended to me; the which, accordingly, most humbly and in great
bitterness and contrition of heart, I do beseech you to bestow upon me
liberally;” and he put the simple signature, “Poor James.” “He confessed
that he had been cognizant of the constable’s designs; but he added that,
whilst thanking him for the kind offers made to himself, and whilst
testifying his desire that the lords might at last get their guarantees,
he had declared what great obligations and great oaths he was under to
the king, against the which he would not go; he, moreover, had told the
constable he had no money at the moment to dispose of, no relative to
whom he was inclined to trust himself or whom he could exert himself to
win over, not even M. d’Albret, his cousin.” In such confessions there
was enough to stop upright and fair judges from the infliction of capital
punishment, but not enough to reassure and move the heart of Louis XI.
On the chancellor’s representations he consented to have the business
sent before the parliament; but the peers of the realm were not invited
to it. The king summoned the parliament to Noyon, to be nearer his own
residence; and he ordered that the trial should be brought to a
conclusion in that town, and that the original commissioners who had
commenced proceedings, as well as thirteen other magistrates and officers
of the king denoted by their posts, should sit with the lords of the
parliament, and deliberate with them.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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