[Sidenote: The king led to give his approval.] The very agents in the massacre were appalled at the havoc they had made. Fearing, with reason, the punishment of their crime, if viewed in its proper light,[501] they endeavored to veil it with the forms of a judicial proceeding. A commission was appointed to try the heretics whom the sword had spared. A part were sentenced to the galleys, others to heavy fines. A few of the tenants of M. de Cental are said to have purchased reconciliation by abjuring their faith.[502] But, to conceal the truth still more effectually, President De la Fond was sent to Paris. He assured Francis that the sufferers had been guilty of the basest crimes, that they had been judicially tried and found guilty, and that their punishment was really below the desert of their offences.[503] Upon these representations, the king was induced--it was supposed by the solicitation of Cardinal Tournon--to grant letters (at Arques, on the eighteenth of August, 1545) approving the execution of the Waldenses, but recommending to mercy all that repented and abjured.[504] [Sidenote: An investigation subsequently ordered.] Thus did the authors of so much human suffering escape merited retribution at the hands of earthly justice during the brief remainder of the reign of Francis the First. If, as some historians have asserted, that monarch's eyes were at last opened to the enormities committed in Provence, it was too late for him to do more than enjoin on his son and successor a careful review of the entire proceedings.[505] After the death of Francis an opportunity for obtaining redress seemed to offer. Cardinal Tournon and Count De Grignan were in disgrace, and their places in the royal favor were held by men who hated them heartily. The new favorites used their influence to secure the Waldenses a hearing. D'Oppède and the four commissioners were summoned to Paris. Count De Grignan himself barely escaped being put on trial--as responsible for the misdeeds of his lieutenant--by securing the advocacy of the Duke of Guise, which he purchased with the sacrifice of his domains at Grignan. For fifty days the trial of the other criminals was warmly prosecuted before the Parliament of Paris; and so ably and lucidly did Auberi present the claims of the oppressed before the crowded assembly, that a severe verdict was confidently awaited. [Sidenote: Meagre effect.]