Budæus returned to the prison shortly afterwards. 'I will retract nothing,' said his friend; 'I would rather die than by my silence countenance the condemnation of truth.'[113] He was lost! Budæus withdrew, pale and frightened, and communicated the terrible news to his colleagues. Beda and his friends were filled with joy, being convinced that to remove Berquin from the number of the living was to remove the Reformation from France. The judges, by an unprecedented exercise of power, revised their sentence, and condemned the nobleman to be strangled and then burnt on the Grève. Margaret, who was at St. Germain, was heartbroken when she heard of this unexpected severity. Alas! the king was at Blois with Madame ——.... Would there be time to reach him? She would try. She wrote to him again, apologising for the very humble recommendations she was continually laying before him, and adding: 'Be pleased, Sire, to have pity on poor Berquin, who is suffering only because he loves the Word of God and obeys you. This is the reason why those who did the contrary during your captivity hate him so; and their malicious hypocrisy has enabled them to find advocates about you to make you forget his sincere faith in God and his love for you.'[114] After having uttered this cry of anguish, the Queen of Navarre waited. [Sidenote: THE EXECUTION HURRIED ON.] But Francis gave no signs of life. In his excuse it has been urged that if he had at that time been victorious abroad and honoured at home, he would have saved Berquin once more; but the troubles in Italy and the intrigues mixed up with the treaty of Cambray, signed three months later, occupied all his thoughts. These are strange reasons. The fact is, that if the king (as is probable) had desired to save Berquin, he had not the opportunity; the enemies of this faithful christian had provided against that. They had scarcely got the sentence in their hands, when they called for its immediate execution. They fancied they could already hear the gallop of the horse arriving from Blois, and see the messenger bringing the pardon. Beda fanned the flame. Not a week's delay, not even a day or an hour! 'But,' said some, 'this prevents the king from exercising the right of pardon, and is an encroachment upon his royal authority.'—'It matters not! put him to death!'—The judges determined to have the sentence carried out the very day it was delivered, '_in order that he might not be helped by the king_.'[115]