Encouraged by this gracious reception, le Breton made the best of his way to Paris, where he sat down to compose a furious invective against the king, whom, with more truth than prudence or decorum, he styled a debauched tyrant, and the magistrates, whom he stigmatised as men steeped in wickedness, who, to please that tyrant, and gratify men in power, betrayed the cause of the poor. Two printers were found who had sufficient boldness to risk the printing of this libel. But, just as it was about to appear, the whole impression was seized, and the author was lodged in the Bastile. The printers were sentenced to be whipped, with their necks in a halter, and then to be banished from the kingdom. The libel was burnt by the public executioner. Believing, or affecting to believe, that the prisoner was less a madman than an instrument of the malecontents, Henry endeavoured, by secret interrogations, to obtain a confession that such was the fact. The attempt failed, and the prisoner was then given up to the parliament for trial. It was his misfortune that he was not the agent of some formidable conspirator; he would in that case have had a fair chance of escaping. When le Breton was brought before the parliament, his malady manifested itself in a more extravagant manner than ever. He treated the court with unbounded contempt, spoke to the members with his hat on, and would answer no questions. As he thus suffered judgment to go by default, sentence of death was passed upon him, as guilty of having excited the people to revolt; but his equitable and compassionate judges also decreed, that “a deputation should wait upon the king, to represent that the culprit laboured under mental alienation, and to entreat that his majesty would pardon a crime which was rather the effect of disease than of free will.” But neither the prayer of the parliament, nor the supplications of le Breton’s mother, who brought irrefragable evidence of his madness, had any effect upon the heartless Henry. Here was a victim whom he could safely sacrifice, and he would not forego the pleasure. Yet even here his mental cowardice peeped out. Instead of the involuntary offender being conveyed to the Grêve, which was the usual place of execution, he was hanged in the palace court. It seems to have been supposed, and perhaps correctly, that the people could not witness without emotion the death of a man, whose malady and whose fate had been brought upon him by commiseration for their sorrows, and who perished because he had no friend, while notorious criminals were daily allowed to brave the laws with impunity. Far from acting as an example to deter others, the murder of le Breton—for in his deplorable situation it was a murder—only served to exasperate the people in a tenfold degree. It was the singular infelicity of Henry never to be right in his treatment of crime; he was despised when he did not punish, he was hated when he did.