The first who came forward was that brave man and respectable Christian, Nicholas Valeton, who had always 'kept good company.' The king had been struck with the circumstance of the hiding of his books, and ordered them to be burnt with him. Valeton stood in front of the pile. With a sort of refined cruelty, the wood with which he was to be burnt had been taken from his own house; but this kind of irony did not affect him. Another object attracted his attention: it was a kind of gallows, formed of two poles, one fixed firmly in the ground, the other fastened to it cross-wise, one end of which was raised at will by means of a cord fastened to the other. The receiver looked calmly at this instrument of punishment, to which they were about to fasten him to make him soar into the air. Merely to burn these humble Christians would have been too simple: the employment of the _strappado_ was to provide the people with a more varied and more diverting spectacle. The priests knowing that Valeton was a man of credit, and that he was moreover rather a novice in heresy, desired to gain him: they approached him and said: 'We have the universal Church with us, out of it there is no salvation; return to it, your faith is destroying you.' This faithful Christian replied: 'I only believe in what the prophets and the apostles formerly preached, and what all the company of saints believed.' The attacks were renewed in vain. 'My faith has a confidence in God,' he said, 'which will resist all the powers of hell.' The good people who were scattered among the crowd admired his firmness,[268] and the thought that he left a bereaved wife behind him touched many a heart. The punishment began. The hangman bound his hands which he fastened to the end of the strappado; the sufferer was then raised in the air, his arms alone sustaining the whole weight of his body. The pile over which he was suspended was then set alight, and they proceeded to their cruel sport. The executioners let the unhappy Valeton fall plump into the midst of the flames; then, reversing their movements, they raised the martyr into the air only to let him fall again into the fire.[269] 'Make the wretches feel that, they are dying,' a cruel pagan emperor had said; a king of France carried out this order, and enjoyed it with all his court, somewhat as savages do when they burn their prisoners. After several turns at this atrocious sport had amused the king, the priests, the nobles, and the people, the flames caught hold of the martyr from his feet to the cord that bound his hands, the knot was burnt, and this upright witness to Christ fell into the fire where his body was reduced to ashes. This inhuman punishment was next applied by order of the _most christian_ king to the two other martyrs. When the torture had lasted long enough, the executioner cut the rope, if the fire had not consumed it, in order that the victim might fall at last into the flames.[270] [Sidenote: TORTURES AT THE HALLES.]