This remarkable prisoner was soon talked of in many quarters of Paris. The case was a very serious one. 'A friar, a Dominican, an inquisitor,' said the people, 'has gone over to the Lutherans, and is striving to make heretics everywhere.' The monks of his own convent made the most noise. The king, who detained Beda in prison, desired to preserve the balance by giving some satisfaction to the catholics. He was not uneasy about the German protestants; he had observed closely the landgrave's ardour, and had no fear that the fiery Philip would break off the alliance for a Dominican monk. Francis, therefore, allowed matters to take their course, and Alexander appeared before a court of parliament. 'Name your accomplices,' said the judges; and as he refused to name the accomplices, who did not exist, the president added: 'Give him the boot.' The executioners brought forward the boards and the wedges, with which they tightly compressed the legs of the evangelist. His sufferings soon became so severe that, hoping they had converted him, they stopped the torture, and the president once more called upon him to name all who, like himself, had separated from the Church of Rome; but he was not to be shaken, and the punishment began again. 'He was severely tortured several times,' say the _Actes_, 'to great extremity of cruelty.' The executioners drove the wedges so tightly between the boards in which his limbs were confined, that his left leg was crushed. Alexander groaned aloud: 'O God!' he exclaimed, 'there is neither pity nor mercy in these men! ... oh that I may find both in thee!'—'Keep on,' said the head executioner. The unhappy man, who had observed Budæus among the assessors, turned on him a mild look of supplication, and said: 'Is there no Gamaliel here to moderate the cruelty they are practising on me?'[580] The illustrious scholar, an honest and just man, although irresolute in his proceedings, kept his eyes fixed on the martyr, astonished at his patience. 'It is enough,' he said: 'he has been tortured too much; you ought to be satisfied.' Budæus was a person of great authority; his words took effect, and the _extraordinary gehenna_ ceased. 'The executioners lifted up the martyr, and carried him to his dungeon a cripple.'[581] [Sidenote: ALEXANDER TORTURED.] It was the custom to deliver sentence in the absence of the accused, and to inform him of it in the Conciergerie through a clerk of the criminal office. The idea occurred of pronouncing it in Alexander's presence; perhaps in his terror he might ask for some alleviation, and by this means they might extort a confession. But all was useless. The court made a great display, and a crowd of spectators increased the solemnity, to no purpose: Alexander Canus, of Evreux, in Normandy, was condemned to be burnt alive. A flash of joy suddenly lit up his face. 'Truly,' said the spectators, 'is he more joyful than he was before!'[582]