Pursuing the absurd system which he had framed for himself, Henry now convoked, at the Louvre, a numerous council of nobles and eminent men; all the heads of the Lorraine family were present. Rosières was brought from the Bastile, and, on his knees confessed his fault, owned that he deserved rigorous punishment, and sued for pardon. The keeper of the seals then gravely lectured him on the enormity of his crime, and declared him to be guilty of high treason. It was next the turn of the queen-mother to play her part; and, accordingly, as had previously been arranged, she stepped forward, and entreated her son to forgive the offender, for the sake of the duke of Lorraine. The king graciously consented, and delivered Rosières into the hands of the duke. This ludicrous scene was terminated by a decree, that the book should be torn to pieces before the author’s face, but that no public record should be made of these things, “lest reproach should fall on the illustrious house of Lorraine.” Anquetil pithily remarks, that the crime ought either to have been left unnoticed, or been more severely chastised. Rosières did not pass the whole of his remaining days in tranquillity. He involved himself in a quarrel with his bishop, and was under the necessity of repairing to Rome, to plead his own cause. How he sped in the holy city is doubtful; one writer affirms that he was censured, another maintains that he was absolved. He died in 1607. Besides the Genealogy, he wrote various works, which are as dead as their author. Writers who ventured to thwart the Guises in their treasonable designs did not meet with so much lenity from them as was shown to Rosières by the feeble-minded Henry. No merit whatever could counterbalance the sin of opposing them. This was experienced by Peter de Belloy, an eminent jurisconsult, who was born at Montauban, about 1540, and became public professor and counsellor at Toulouse. Belloy was a zealous catholic, and his three elder brothers had fallen in combating against the protestants. But these claims to consideration were not sufficient to prevent him from being persecuted by the house of Lorraine.