Deputations came from the confederation to congratulate the officials _de facto_ and to promise aid. The next step gave the lie direct to the message sent to Charles upholding his authority while protesting against his lieutenant. Sigismund was urged to return to his own without further delay for legal formalities with his creditor. He assented. On April 30th, accordingly, the Austrian duke arrived in Brisac and picked up the reins of authority which he had joyfully dropped four years previously. The rabble welcomed his coming with effusion, singing a ready parody of an Easter hymn:[8] "Christ is arisen, the _landvogt_ is in prison, Let us all rejoice, Sigismund is our choice. Kyrie Eleison! Had he not been snared, evil had it fared, But now that he is ta'en, his craft is all in vain. Kyrie Eleison!" Thus it was under Sigismund's auspices that the late governor was brought to trial. Instruments of torture sent from Basel were employed to make Hagenbach confess his crimes. But there was nothing to confess. As a matter of fact the charges against him were for well-known deeds the character of which depended on the point of view. What the Alsatians declared were infringements of their rights, the duke's deputy stoutly asserted were acts justified by the terms of the treaty. In regard to his private career the prisoner persisted in his statement that he was no worse than other men and that all his so-called victims had been willing and well rewarded for their submission to him. On May 9th, the preliminaries were declared over and the trial began before a tribunal whose composition is not perfectly well known, but which certainly included delegates from the chief cities of the landgraviate, and from Strasburg, Basel, and Berne.[9] The trial was practically lynch law in spite of the cloak of legality thrown over it. Charles alone was Hagenbach's principal and he alone was responsible for his lieutenant's acts. The intrinsic incompetence of the court was hotly urged by Jean Irma of Basel, Hagenbach's self-appointed advocate, but his defence was rejected. Public opinion insisted upon extreme measures, and the sentence of capital punishment was promptly followed by execution. Petitions from the prisoner that he might die by the sword and be permitted to bequeath a portion of his property to the church of St. Étienne at Brisac were granted. The remainder of his wealth was confiscated by Sigismund, who had withdrawn to Fribourg during the progress of the trial. Even Hagenbach's bitterest foes acknowledged that the late governor made a dignified and Christian exit from the life he had not graced.