The irritated prince ordered him to be arrested in full Parliament, by the captain of his guards, and said aloud, that he would see him burned with his own eyes. But wounded, by the splinter of a lance, in a tournament, he died a month afterwards; and we are assured that in his last moments he remembered Anne Dubourg with grief, and the other counsellors confined in the Bastille. “They are innocent,” he cried, “and God punishes me for having persecuted them.” The Cardinal de Lorraine hastened to quiet his conscience, by saying that this was a suggestion of the devil. Anne Dubourg was born, in 1521, at Riom, in Auvergne, and belonged to a family of consideration. His uncle had been chancellor of France. After having studied theology, received orders, and entered the law at Orleans, he occupied, since the year 1557, a seat in the Parliament of Paris. He was a man of great learning, integrity, and devotion to his duties; and the only accusation that could be brought against him was, that he had sided with the new religion. The death of the king did not suspend his trial. The bishop of Paris had him degraded from his orders, and, contrary to custom, the matter was brought, not before the assembled chambers, but commissioners. Some magistrates would have persuaded him to make a confession of faith in ambiguous terms, so that, without wounding his own conscience, he might satisfy that of the judges. Dubourg refused: he even disavowed his advocate Marillac, who had defended him with equivocal phrases, and he was condemned to be burned alive. He heard his sentence read without a change of countenance, and prayed God to pardon his judges. “Happen what will,” said he, “I am a Christian; yes, I am a Christian; and I will shout still louder, dying for the glory of my Lord Jesus Christ.” As the Reformers had tried to provide him with the means of escape, he was inclosed in an iron cage, an old implement of Louis XI.’s fetched from the Bastille. Dubourg’s resignation was not disturbed: he sang the praises of God in this narrow prison. It was the usage to reserve for grand occasions the execution of criminals of the deepest dye, and that of Anne Dubourg was fixed for the 23rd of December, 1559, the day before Christmas-eve. Six hundred men were put under arms. The crossways of the streets were even inclosed with strong posts and barriers, in order that the place of execution might not be ascertained until the last hour. Dubourg wished to divest himself of his clothes: “My friends,” said he to the people, “I am not here to die like a thief, or a murderer, but for the Gospel.” He was offered a crucifix, but he rejected it, and when suspended on the gibbet he cried: “My God, my God, forsake me not, that I may not forsake Thee.”