In Paris itself parliament tried a native of Dauphiny, Jean Chapot, who, having brought several packages of books from Geneva, had been denounced by a brother printer. His defence was so apt and learned that the judges were nearly shaken by his animated appeals. It fared ill with three doctors of the Sorbonne, Dean Nicholas Clerici, and his assistants, Picard and Maillard, who were called in to refute him; for they could not stand their ground, and were forced, avoiding proofs from the Holy Scriptures, to have recourse to the authority of the church. In the end the theologians covered their retreat with indignant remonstrances addressed to parliament for listening to such seductive speakers; and the majority of the judges, mastering their first inclination to acquit Chapot, condemned him to the stake, reserving for him the easier death by strangling, in case he recanted. An unusual favor was allowed him. He was permitted to make a short speech previously to his execution. Faint and utterly unable to stand, in consequence of the tortures by which his body had been racked, he was supported on either side by an attendant, and thus from the funeral cart explained his belief to the by-standers. But when he reached the topic of the Lord's Supper, he was interrupted by one of the priests. The milder sentence of the halter was inflicted, in order to create the impression that he had been so weak as to repeat the "_Ave Maria_." But the practice henceforth uniformly followed by the "_Chambre ardente_" of parliament, of cutting out the tongues of the condemned before sending them to public execution, confirmed the report that Maillard had exclaimed that "all would be lost, if such men were suffered to speak to the people."[515] FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 449: This was true particularly of the wealthy noble family to whom belonged the fief of Cental, perhaps at a somewhat later date. Among the Waldensian villages owned by it were those of La Motte d'Aigues, St. Martin, Lourmarin, Peypin, and others in the same vicinity. Bouche, Histoire de Provence, i. 610.] [Footnote 450: Crespin, Actiones et Monimenta (Geneva, 1560), fols. 88, 90, 100.] [Footnote 451: Ibid., _ubi supra_, fol. 100; Garnier, Histoire de France, xxvi. 27.] [Footnote 452: Leber, Collection de pièces rel. à l'hist. de France, xvii. 550.]