The Frenchman was as good as his word. Having caused his secretary to draw out a copy of the excommunication, with the simple alteration of inserting "the Holy Inquisitors," instead of his own name, he ordered him on the following morning to repair with it, accompanied by four regiments of soldiers, to the Inquisition, and having read it to the Inquisitors themselves, if they made the least noise, to turn them to the door, open all the prisons, and quarter two regiments in the sacred edifice. These orders were implicitly obeyed. Amazed and confounded to hear themselves excommunicated by a man who had no authority for it, the Inquisitors began to cry out against Legal as a heretic, and as having publicly insulted the Catholic faith. "Holy Inquisitors," replied the secretary, "the king wants this house to quarter his troops in; so walk out immediately." Having no alternative, the holy fathers were compelled to obey. The doors of all the prisons were thrown open, and four hundred prisoners set at liberty. Among these were sixty young women, who were found to be the private property of the three Inquisitors, whom they had unjustly taken from their fathers' homes in the city and neighbourhood! The next day the Inquisitors complained to Philip; but that monarch calmly replied, "I am very sorry; but I cannot help it; my crown is in danger, and my grandfather defends it, and this is done by his troops. If it had been done by my troops, I should have applied a speedy remedy; but you must have patience till things take another turn." They were accordingly obliged to exercise that patience for a period of eight months. The archbishop, however, deeply concerned for the honour of the holy tribunal, requested M. Legal to send the women to his palace, promising that he would take care of them, and threatening with excommunication all who should dare to defame, by groundless reports, the tribunal of the Inquisition. M. Legal professed his willingness to comply with this request; but as to the young women, he informed his grace, that they had already been taken away by the French officers. This affair, which is related by Gavin, and other writers, shows at once the detestable nature of a tribunal where deeds of darkness, "of which it is a shame even to speak," were so unblushingly committed. For these young women "were chiefly ladies, beautiful and accomplished, who had been forcibly carried away, at the pleasure of the Inquisitors, from the most opulent families in the city, to enrich their seraglio, and who probably would never have been seen without the walls of the holy office, but for such a deliverance as that which was effected by the French soldiers."