There was a pause of solemn silence ... but not for long. It was broken by the doctors of the Sorbonne and the monks, who hastily went up and contemplated the lifeless body of their victim. No one cried 'Jesus! Jesus!'—a cry of mercy heard even at the execution of a parricide. The most virtuous man in France was treated worse than a murderer. One person, however, standing near the stake, showed some emotion, and, strange to say, it was the grand penitentiary Merlin. 'Truly,' he said, 'so good a christian has not died these hundred years and more.' The dead body was thrown into the flames, which mounted up and devoured those limbs once so vigorous and now so pale and lifeless. A few men, led away by passion, looked on with joy at the progress of the fire, which soon consumed the precious remains of him who should have been the reformer of France. They imagined they saw heresy burnt out, and when the body was entirely destroyed, they thought that the Reformation was destroyed with it, and that not a fragment of it remained. But all the spectators were not so cruel. They gazed upon the burning pile with sorrow and with love. The christians who had looked upon Berquin as the future reformer of France, were overwhelmed with anguish when they saw the hero in whom they had hoped reduced to a handful of dust. The temper of the people seemed changed, and tears were seen to flow down many a face. In order to calm this emotion, certain rumours were set afloat. A man stepped out of the crowd, and going up to the Franciscan confessor, asked him: 'Did Berquin acknowledge his error?'—'Yes, certainly,' answered the monk, 'and I doubt not that his soul departed in peace.' This man was Montius; he wrote and told the anecdote to Erasmus. 'I do not believe a word of it,' answered the latter. 'It is the usual story which those people invent after the death of their victims, in order to appease the anger of the people.'