Salcede was brought to trial. Everything that could throw light on the fact of the conspiracy was studiously suppressed; there was no search for evidence relative to it, no examination and confronting of the persons who had been charged by the prisoner. The sole object was to obtain a sentence of death against the man whose existence might prove fatal to the conspirators. That object was accomplished on the 25th of October, 1582. Salcede was pronounced guilty of high treason, and was condemned to be torn into quarters by four horses; his quarters were to be placed on gibbets, at the principal gates of Paris, and his head was to be sent to Antwerp, to be exposed in a similar manner. Immediately previous to his execution, he was likewise to be put to the torture; this was a supererogatory act of cruelty, for, even if we admit the possibility of justifying the use of torture, its infliction in this instance could answer no useful purpose. It was decreed, also, by his judges, that “his confessions, the private letters found on him, and _the declarations which he had made since the commencement of his trial_, should be burnt to ashes; as having been malignantly and calumniously invented, to prejudice the honour of various princes, nobles, and other persons.” Here is the key to the whole proceeding. “Light dies before thy uncreating word! Thy hand, great anarch, lets the curtain fall, And universal darkness buries all.” The king was sufficiently devoid of feeling to witness, behind a curtain, the torturing of the prisoner, and to go to the Town Hall, to see executed the ferocious and sickening sentence, which condemned a fellow being to be torn to pieces by horses. But, even in that corrupt and semi-barbarous age, there were not wanting persons who passed a severe censure on Henry, for conduct which was disgraceful to him as a king and a man. When the torture was applied, Salcede again veered about; he re-asserted the whole of what he had originally stated, with respect to the conspiracy. This blow was, however, adroitly parried by those whom it might otherwise have injured. As he was passing up a dark staircase, after having been tortured, he was joined by a priest, of the order of Jesuits, who exhorted him to retract his confession once more. This ghostly adviser no doubt worked powerfully on his hopes and fears, with regard to another world, and he succeeded in prevailing on him to make a new retractation. As nothing was to be gained by varying in his story, he persisted in this retractation, and, at the place of execution, he loudly extolled the virtues, and proclaimed the innocence, of his patrons, the Guises. He lived a villain, and he died a self-convicted liar.