The new examination ought to have taken place on the 20th of January, 1518; but Pécolat, suffering from the torture past and terrified by the torture to come, had fallen seriously ill, and it was necessary to send the doctor to him. This man consented to his being carried before the court. The four episcopal judges immediately called for the question, but the syndics opposed it, and the episcopal delegates began to study this living corpse. After examining him attentively they said: ‘He still affords some hold for the torture; he may be examined with _a few torments_’ (such is the expression in the report). Nergaz siding with the Savoyard doctors, the torture was decided upon. Poor Pécolat began to tremble from head to foot; he knew that he should denounce all his friends, and cursed his own weakness. They tied his hands behind his back, they showed him the rack, and interrogated him.... ‘However, they did not torture him,’ continues the report, ‘considering the weakness of his body and his long imprisonment.’ They thought that the fear of the rack would suffice to make him speak; they were deceived; the sick--we might almost call him the dying man, though tied up and bound, having the instrument of torture before him, answered with simplicity and frankness. Even the bishop’s judges were struck with his candour, and two of them, ‘having the fear of God before their eyes,’ says Bonivard, rather than the fear of men, declared _roundly_: ‘They have done this poor man wrong. _Non invenimus in eo causam._ We find no fault in him.’[129]